Kicking Off

For a while now a number of friends have asked when I was going to start a blog. I have resisted doing so for a number of reasons:

1) When writing op-ed pieces I, like most people, tend to enjoy unsheathing the knife and attacking. It feels good to drive the pen, like a blade, deep into the the ideas of others and turn. I take great joy out of poping the balloons of others. Because I know that Christ is (often) not evident in me in those times...I have not blogged.

2) I have looked down at the cyber world with contempt. When I read other people's blogs, I was often disappointed at the irrational vitriol that seemed to be tossed back and forth. To put it bluntly, I found the "blog-o-sphere" filled with just to many weirdos and had no interest in becoming part of that world.

3) Although I probably won't, if I ever ran for public office again, I didn't want any silly blog entry I did coming back to bite me.

4) There seems to be a narcessistic desire these days for everyone to "express themselves". I know I am not immune to this. I didn't want to do the classic "express your individuality by doing what everyone else is doing" routine.

5) I enjoy building bridges with people, (or at least building a bridge so that they can cross over to my right way of thinking :) Because I have many friends on the Left and Right, Christian and not, multi-ethnicities, and from around the globe etc. I did not want to intentionally offend anyone who is close to me by writing some of the blog entries I'm sure to write.

So why start one now???

1) Because our move to China prompted the establishing of a family blog. Often there were things I wanted to write about, but a family update blog was not the most appropriate forum

2) My brother's blog. As I would start commenting on his blog about certain topics, I found I wanted to have my own forum for exprssion.

3) By willfulling ignoring and not thinking about the 5 reasons for not starting one that I previously mentioned.

So with that, welcome to Beyond The Pale. A hodge podge of my thoughts on Christianity, politics, religion, current events, movies, and baseball. Enjoy!!!