I recently sent an email of some thoughts on blogging to gadgetvicar specifically in relation to the benefits & pitfalls of blogging within a church community. These weren't rules, but more ideas to think about. I've spoken to so many bloggers who have regrets about what they've posted.

The overarching appeal (and danger) of blogging is that it reveals the character of the author, and probably more than any other form of written material ever can.

Even personal diaries? Is a blog more revealing about a person than if you happened across their "do not read" reflections? Yes. In a way, it is.

The difference comes from the fact that a blog is written to be read in public. You would expect that the knowledge of the inevitable publicity of the blog would serve to influence what a person says and doesn't say when writing it. Well, yes, but not in the ways you might expect.

The problem is that people want to get their opinions across. They want to display their personality, to seek affirmation from like-minded individuals. They want to challenge the attitudes of others when they are not in line with their own. And the result of this is that people can discern your motivations, your attitudes, prejudices and insecurities from your posts (and from your replies, which can often be less thought-out, and harder to retract!). Scholars think that with high-faluting language and ambiguous sentence structure, they can hide their true personality. But there's always text the author can't see between the lines.

When posting, I think I am blinded by my positive attributes that come across in the post. How wise. How pithy. How amusing. Then, when reading back on subsequent days, the negatives attributes really make themselves clear. How cringeworthy.

Blogs differ from personal diaries because they often don't share totally honest personal feelings of inadequacy or guilt, or tales of where you've done the wrong thing. Yet these are the things that make us human, and frailty has an endearing quality. It's never advisable to show it in a public forum, because the very nature of the forum taints the veracity of the emotion ("is that what he wants me to think about him?").

So should I answer the question in the title of my blog? Or will it be misinterpreted? Is it better to keep that to a private forum, or a personal diary?

I don't think I'll go into detail, actually. It's there for the discerning to see.

Maybe the nature of this very post is ludicrously self-absorbed! I apologise for my weaknesses, and thank God for my strengths. Judge my blogs, and replies, (and for that matter, my emails, phone calls and conversations) how you will. Forgive me: I'll forgive you!