No Bees in My Bonnet

“Is it really worth get­ting a bee in your bon­net over?”

If she were still with us here on earth, that’s what my mother would have asked.

Blog­ging is, for the vast major­ity of us, an avo­ca­tion rather than a voca­tion or pro­fes­sion. A pleas­ant diver­sion from our daily toil.

I am thank­ful today for my friends in the blog­ging com­mu­nity. And happy for those who have sup­ported one of my recent endeav­ors, The Sev­enth Day Blog Car­ni­val. I appre­ci­ate the kind words and par­tic­i­pa­tion of many won­der­ful fel­low bloggers.

So I found myself scratch­ing my head in bewil­der­ment when one lone voice rose up to chas­tise me. What was my trans­gres­sion? I vis­ited her blog and left a com­ment, invit­ing her to par­tic­i­pate in the Carnival.

The vit­riol oozed out of her e-mail as she accused me of “spam­ming” her.

Spam­ming?

She claimed she had never heard of me, even though I was one of her sub­scribers and reg­u­larly read her posts for quite some time.

Not any more. I qui­etly unsub­scribed and let her know that she wouldn’t hear from me again.

Still not sat­is­fied, she e-mailed me again and lec­tured me about the proper way to leave com­ments on not just her blog, but every blog. She noti­fied me that I should only leave com­ments on blogs that have con­tent “related to” the theme of On the Horizon.

Wow, I missed that direc­tive in the “Blog­gers’ Book of Eti­quette, Vol­ume 101A.”

Oh, there’s no such book, you say? Imag­ine that.

Iron­i­cally, the same woman who took time out of her day on three sep­a­rate occa­sions to instruct me about the finer points of leav­ing com­ments on blogs also wrote these words on her site one week ago:

Isn’t lov­ing oth­ers for the spe­cific pur­pose of lov­ing oth­ers, with no strings attached and no expec­ta­tions or self­ish­ness the ulti­mate expres­sion of God’s very nature? And if it is, isn’t that the best vision of hope we can give to those around us?

As I was dri­ving home tonight in the pour­ing rain, think­ing about what would cause some­one to behave in such a man­ner, espe­cially when, as she pointed out, she had never “heard of me,” has never met me in per­son, has never cor­re­sponded with me pre­vi­ously and, pre­sum­ably, has never read any of my writ­ings here, I would have sworn my mother was in the car with me, ask­ing me the ques­tion I posed at the out­set: “Is it really worth get­ting a bee in your bon­net over?”

As I was strug­gling to drive home safely, strain­ing to see the dark road as the rain pounded my vehi­cle, the evening news­cast was broad­cast on the radio. The fore­clo­sure rate is sky­rock­et­ing — peo­ple are los­ing their homes or, in many more cases, barely hang­ing on to them from month to month, unable to refi­nance or sell, pray­ing that they will be able to make the mort­gage pay­ment when next month arrives. Young men and women are still dying in Iraq. Another young Hol­ly­wood star is dead and no one seems to know why — or why so many who never even met him weep at his doorstep as though a mem­ber of their own fam­ily had been lost. Brit­ney Spears bolted from the cour­t­house yet again.

I left a com­ment invit­ing another Chris­t­ian to par­tic­i­pate in a blog car­ni­val. A car­ni­val I con­ceived for the express pur­pose of show­cas­ing oth­ers’ writ­ing in an attempt to help them gain a wider audi­ence. No strings attached.

“When you’re invited to din­ner, go and sit at the last place. Then when the host comes he may very well say, ‘Friend, come up to the front.’ That will give the din­ner guests some­thing to talk about! What I’m say­ing is, If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face. But if you’re con­tent to be sim­ply your­self, you will become more than yourself.“Then he turned to the host. “The next time you put on a din­ner, don’t just invite your friends and fam­ily and rich neigh­bors, the kind of peo­ple who will return the favor. Invite some peo­ple who never get invited out, the mis­fits from the wrong side of the tracks. You’ll be—and experience—a bless­ing. They won’t be able to return the favor, but the favor will be returned—oh, how it will be returned!—at the res­ur­rec­tion of God’s people.”

Luke 14:10–14
(The Message)

The Sev­enth Day is an out­reach project. The inspi­ra­tion for the Car­ni­val was placed in my heart by the Holy Spirit. How bor­ing life would be if we only read arti­cles in the same blogs, writ­ten by the same authors, day after day after day after day … My life is fuller, richer and I gain wis­dom by step­ping out side my com­fort zone to inter­act with peo­ple I don’t know who have had dif­fer­ent life expe­ri­ences than me and look at the world through a dif­fer­ent lens.

I owe no apol­ogy for reach­ing out and invit­ing other blog­gers to join in the fun. After all, if some­one does not want to par­tic­i­pate, they can gra­ciously say “No thank you.” Or say noth­ing at all. No strings attached.

I’m thank­ful that the Holy Spirit allowed me to hear my mother’s voice again, if only in my mem­ory. I miss her wis­dom, her down-to-earth approach to life. She knew just what to say to make me stop, eval­u­ate a sit­u­a­tion from a dif­fer­ent van­tage point and, most impor­tantly, keep things in perspective.

Blog­ging is sup­posed to be relax­ing, refresh­ing … fun. We are com­mended to hold up our fel­low blog­gers, encour­ag­ing one another, lov­ing each other with no strings attached, no expec­ta­tions, no self­ish­ness. Yes, that is the “ulti­mate expres­sion of” the Divine Creator’s nature and “the best vision of hope” that I can imagine.

No one is going to take that vision of hope from this Hope­ful Spirit. Not even a woman with a large bum­ble­bee in her bon­net over some­thing so entirely incon­se­quen­tial as a com­ment on a blog.

You are ALL invited to par­tic­i­pate in The Sev­enth Day Blog Car­ni­val! If you’d like to join in, send me the link to the post that you would like to have fea­tured. Make it your best post from the prior week.

I also encour­age you to drop by and read some or all of the entries from folks who did opt to join in.

I will extol the Lord at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.

My soul will boast in the Lord;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

Glo­rify the Lord with me;
let us exalt his name together.

Psalm 34: 1–3

The Mes­sage

Bless­ings to all of you! I wish you a won­der­ful week, punc­tu­ated by thank­ful­ness for your many bless­ings and a healthy per­spec­tive about what is truly impor­tant — devoid of any bees in your bonnet.

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