If you were to ask me why I keep a blog, I might answer with one of these:

1. The art of crafting an interesting post redeems a day spent on work. I know my day’s labor has long-lasting meaning–educating my kids, providing nutritious meals, managing the household expenses, providing hospitality–but I find it deeply satisfying to create art in the crevices of my duties. When I finish and click Publish, I know I have made something uniquely mine, and for a couple of hours I feel like the cat that finally knocked over the fishbowl and ate the tetra. Cocky. Full. Ready for a nap.

2. The idea that I have my own space in the mysterious internet universe tickles me. And I am a sucker for shiny. I love the back window of my WordPress blog, with its tools and stats and place to store drafts. When a post draws comments, I experience a kind of awe that my soul touched another’s. The backlit blank screen draws me like moth to flame. I want to put something on it and see it posted under my header picture. Voila! I am published!

3. On a good day, words pull from mind to fingers in a smooth thread, like the straw turned into gold by Rumpelstiltskin. I love that. What an antidote to a fragmented day, where as the homemaker-homeschool teacher I answer to interruptions constantly.

4. My childhood was shaped by books. I used to read all the time, lounging on my bed or sneaking away to read in the woods. I still read, holding a book while work at chores when I can get away with it. I love the taste of wordplay, and apt analogies are filet mignon and roasted brussels sprouts. (You can nourish me with ground beef and potatoes, but they don’t create that kind of pleasure.) I love an excellent meal of words and want to try my hand at cooking for myself.

5. Last, I write because odd connections occur to me and I want to share them. For instance, this month during the most fabulous foliage display I have ever seen, I noticed how the yellow stripe down the middle of the road contained the same colors as its surroundings. All year long it is a glaring anomaly, deliberately artificial, painted to get our attention and keep us out of the way of danger. We live are forced to live by yellow lines in a green world. Rousseau would hate to drive by this unnatural construct, resenting the restriction this places on natural man. [This is supposing he would submit to the rules of the road long enough to get a driver’s license.] We are not free to drive as we might; the law of the paint restrains us.

But look! At the end of the summer, gradually the green fades and we discover the world that was there all along: the red, yellow, and orange that were masked by the green of photosynthesis. And one day we realize the yellow stripe is in perfect harmony with this marvelous new world.

Likewise, I am quite sure we will discover, to our delight or horror, that the universal, transcendent moral law that chafes us so much now will fit perfectly the world we are born into after death. Is it hard for me to love God now with a whole heart? Do I find it difficult to love others unconditionally? To be honest in all my private dealings? Does the moral law seem artificial to me now? I look forward to the place where it all fits.

Meanwhile, I hope to spin a mountain of straw-thoughts into a thin line of gold, making some sense of what I experience in this green world.