Hey Babe, Wanna Increase My Downline?

Hey babe wanna increase my downline

This wouldn’t be the first time someone “posted” a “blog” on their “website” while having nothing to say. Well, not nothing exactly, but certainly not being sure exactly what he wants to say. But then that’s part of what a blog is, or was. Or maybe that’s just the bad kind; definitely it’s the old kind … nowadays I read posts and while I might still question the timing — why am I reading this right now when I should be reading Flannery O’Connor for the apologetics seminar I have to record, for instance — the value is often pretty decent.

Blogging has matured, which might be one of those “tallest building in Topeka” designations (or, if you grew up in the 1980s, this, at the 3:25 mark) but seriously, it’s improved. People with something to say are managing to say it, and find people who want to hear it. Focused blog posts, with calls to action, the array of sharing options, and followers in some cases in the 10s of thousands.

In other words, many elements absent from this particular post.

Because I feel pretty good about starting to figure all this out. Yes. Starting. Blogging has changed — and so have I, because at one time I would never even have used the word blogging. And just when I’m starting, maybe feeling like I’m already a pretty good writer and won’t just talk about myself all the time, but will find ways to connect with people … with you … something else starts happening.

I’m getting serious about my writing.

’bout time, huh?

Several authors are to blame for this, including Walter Brueggemannm, as well as Craig Barnes, and the above-mentioned Miss O’Connor. There is also the work and example of Rich Mullins and a book by Lawrence Thornton on what telling the truth actually is.  Just as I begin “blogging,” I find that I shouldn’t be writing any ol’ thing.

Blogging itself has moved forward
I am daily getting older and older
Now comes seriousness to afflict

Long story short, if it’s not too late, the last 24 months, and particularly the last 2-4, have conspired against me to say to me that the things I really want to say to you are the things I should really try to say … which is to say, the things I should write.

God is in it, too.

I am certain.

Still tempted, and have succumbed, to the desire to tweet every time I learn a new word, or string a few hundred of them together in a blog post, or a few thousand of them together in an eBook. But today I saw this, on Twitter, from Rich Tatum:

Asking ‘How can I use Twitter to market product?’ is like asking,
‘How can I use your dinner party to grow my downstream network?’

There is still too much of this, hence my title on this post. We’re all out scrambling for dates and trying not to look desperate. Kings of the Dipshits one and all, and far more kings than subjects, it seems like. Well it’s not the truth but yeesh, c’mon people … do we even want it to seem like it is?

All this together means, roughly, find a way.

But why shouldst thou care? This post, while offering value, including relevant and helpful links, and not going on too terribly long, is it anything that should matter to you?

If you are a true fan, or going to be, then yes.

This could end up very good indeed, for you.

For starters, I’m interested in what you think.

Please write and tell me.

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

Read More »

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

Read More »

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.]   One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Read More »

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Read More »

Random

Lapsed Pray-er

When I pray in the morning I often lapse into The Jesus Prayer. The link notes the Eastern Orthodox connection and its basic form — Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. — though it seems actually to come in different shapes and colors, some slightly longer and more formal,

Read More »

What Are The Stories

“What are the stars?” No, not “big balls of gas” — that’s just their form. Just as people aren’t blood and guts so are stars not big balls of gas. What then are the stories?  I started with two divergent thoughts — There is only one plot: things are not what they seem. Jim Thompson and With a

Read More »

Trouble and Strife

Septic tank is Cockney rhyming slang for “Yank” which may suggest what trouble and strife is slang for. But it’s not fair of course, and good men, and most men some of the time, know she’s not only that. Upon noting once how, yes, “children are a bother,” Dallas Willard made the important philosophical distinction

Read More »

The Professional

  shows up every day stays on the job all day commits to the long haul sets the stakes high, sees they’re real is patient seeks order demystifies acts in the face of fear accepts no excuses plays it as it lays is prepared doesn’t show off masters technique asks for help doesn’t take failure

Read More »

Related

Pieta

I don’t think next year will be so different from this year. Which after all was not so different from the one before. But I think you can be different from last year and I can. Which after all may be true for you as it was also for me.

Read More »

Jesus All The Way Down

The other day I wrote about having no hope. More specifically no hope in this world, more specifically because the hopes we had have been hammered against hardened sand and dirt and clay, that is, against the rocks. That may be the basic choice in life: Heart hardened … or Hopes hammered … And then

Read More »

Time, Treasure

Saw an episode ages ago of one of the Twilight Zone reboots which, I’m pretty sure, starred Mark Hamill as this weird kid who collected toys. All this kitschy stuff from the ‘50s and grew up collecting them — and thus stayed weird and for the most part apparently lonely for his life entire. Of course

Read More »

God a Day

My sister gave me a “page-a-day” calendar for Christmas. Michele’s not as fond of them, because of all the paper I think she says. For me, it seems the perfect item: you tear one off, and bam! you’re done. Though it is a lot of paper … But mine is Bible verses, and it’s a

Read More »