Blogging Manifestos

Stanton Finley recently posted a beautiful piece called “Blocks,” which Mike Golby has interpreted as a blogging manifesto for himself--and re-christened it, “The River.” As always, Mike’s observations are well worth reading.

While attending a Bar Mitzvah last weekend, I ran across an inspiring prayer, and like Golby with Finley, I reacted to it as something that could be applied as a manifesto to my own relationship to blogging—encumbered as it often is with interferences of self-doubt.

This prayer, I should point out, was part of a Jewish Renewal service—i.e., a modern-day, non-traditional, free-thinking approach. It’s a version of “Elohai Neshama” (my God, the soul which You have placed within me is pure). It goes like this:

“There is a vitality, a life force,
an energy, a quickening that is translated
through you into action
and because there is only one you in all time
this expression is unique.
And if you block it, it will never exist through
any other medium . . . the world
will not have it.
It is not your business
to determine how good it is, nor how valuable,
nor how it compares with other expressions.
It is your business to keep it yours
clearly and directly,
to keep the channel open.”

You won't find two better practitioners of this manifesto than Golby and Finley. Thanks, guys, for being the examples that you are.