Blogging For Two Years

two years old
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

PeaceBang turns two years old today or tomorrow.

It all began when I had dinner with my pals, two of whom were expecting their first child any minute. She (my preganant pal) told me that they had a blog for the baby and that I would be able to see photos on the blog.

I wanted to know what a blog was. I was vaguely aware that my friends Chris (Philocrites) and Scott (Boy In the Bands) had blogs, but those both seemed very high-tech and fancy, and I was intrigued by the fact that Rebecca had apparently started one so easily. She said it was easy as pie to get on Blogspot.com and start my own. She said I should do it.
So if you love PeaceBang, you can thank Rebecca. If you hate PeaceBang, you can BLAME Rebecca!!

Steve -- another friend along that night -- and I stood in line to get ice cream later that evening. He had stiffed me on a dinner date earlier in the summer, and I was holding a grudge. So as the clerk took our orders, I gestured to him and said, "He's paying."

It was kind of loud in the ice cream store.

He looked at me with a happy smile and said, "PeaceBang!"

I stared back at him, and then at the clerk. "HE'S paying," I said again. She turned to scoop the ice cream. Again Steve looked at me and said with a grin, "PEACEBANG!"

I thought he had lost his marbles, poor boy. "What in the HAY-ELL are you talking about?" I said. "Do you not understand me? HE'S. PAYING. HE. IS. PAYING. What in the world is PeaceBang, anyway?"

"That's what I thought you were saying!" he said. "I thought it was something you say like before you clink glasses! 'PeaceBang!' Like 'cheers!'"

"Oh my God," I said, and we collapsed in giggles. He paid for my ice cream cone and I spent the rest of the night cracking up over his crazy PeaceBang notion.

When I went home and sat in front of the blank Blogspot template and had to choose a name, many options flitted in and out of my mind, but only one produced a total "AH HA" reaction: PeaceBang. It was perfect. It was, as they say, b'rsheit, meant to be.

I always knew that PeaceBang would be both the same and a distinct persona from my "real life" self (whoever that is!), but I had no idea what a joy it would be to put her out over the airwaves, as it were, and to enter into such a rich and intense conversation with all of you as PB. Because PeaceBang has so much to say, she encourages me to attend to the world with more mindfulness, and to articulate things I had heretofore left floating vaguely around my cerebrum.

Why do I blog? What draws me to zip onto Blogspot so often and to share my thoughts with you?

I blog because I am a compulsive writer and talker, and blogging ministers to my verbally manic mind and soul (and spares those I love the excesses of my thought process).

I blog to participate in the community of bloggers who inspire, irritate and challenge each other.

I blog as an excercise in Unitarian Universalist and Christian evangelism, and as a way to share my passion for ministry and for religious life lived in community.

I blog because I live alone and I get lonesome for someone to talk to, and when I do, you're always there.

I blog as a way to connect people who are spinning around on the big blue marble thinking similar or complementary thoughts, so that we may feel a bit less alone or eccentric in our musings.

I blog as a way to create conversation between myself and others, and between me, myself and I. I have come to see the value in cyber community in a very busy world.

I blog because it brings a new dimension to friendships that I cherish, and helps create new ones.

Thanks to Rebecca for being the midwife to this blog, and to all of you for being part of this pioneering experiment in communication and community.