It’s now been over nine months since Gray Matters began. I’ve posted over a hundred times, and spent countless hours blogging, editing, re-editing, and agonizing over posts.
I often wonder why I started Gray Matters in the first place. I stopped blogging for a time in November and December, discouraged that no one seemed to be reading my work. (Tip: NEVER look at your blog stats if you can help it.) And even now, I still wonder why I put so much time into blogging - even though I already know the answer.
There are four reasons why this blog exists. Some are incredibly arrogant, others less so.
The first and most arrogant reason is the illusion of influence. All writers are narcissists. Seeing that even a few other people come to your blog to read YOUR material is an incredible ego-boost.
The second is also arrogant. Many people blog as a sort of diary, to let out what they are thinking. I often find that to be the case with these posts - they serve as outlets so I can bounce my thoughts off others.
The third reason is practical. This blog serves as practice for my future endeavors, since I firmly believe God is calling me to be a Catholic apologist. An apologist needs to learn to articulately express his faith to others in a coherent, articulate, and interesting manner.
But when all is said and done, I blog for one very important reason: to help readers come to know Christ and the Catholic Church better.
My goal in life is to help lead souls to Christ, as the rather melodramatic blurb at the top of Gray Matters indicates. If just one Catholic reads the musings on here and learns something about his or her Catholic Faith, or if one non-Catholic stumbles across this blog and comes to a better appreciation of Catholicism, then the long hours spent blogging are worth the time and energy spent on them.
It is my fervent hope and prayer that these rants and ramblings help you, dear readers, to understand Christ better. God grant this may continue to be so.
Thanks for blogging. I read your work and about a hundred others via Google's RSS reader; I don't think it registers on someone's blog when that's done. I don't subscribe for email delivery of any of them. The RSS reader lets me see a snippet of a post; then I can decide to read the whole thing or not, but still I don't think you see it in your stats. This comment makes the first time I've actually been to your site. Nice clean layout. Thanks for doing this work. We both (all) come a little closer to Him when you write.
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