Prodigal Kiwi(s) Blog

The Journey that Is Maria Popova

Maria Popova, like philosopher Julia Kristiva (b. 24^th June 1941), was an immigrant from Bulgaria. In Kristeva’s case it was to France, while for Popova, it was to America. Popova describes herself as “a reader, writer, interestingness hunter-gatherer, and curious mind at large.” The means of disseminating her reading, curiosity and thinking is her website Brain Pickings, founded “mostly”, she writes, as “a record of [her] own becoming as a person — intellectually, creatively, spiritually — and an inquiry into how to live and what it means to lead a good life.

Popova has been able to scale her journey to a size I would never have the time to do, but our interests and motivation remain very similar. I too am a reader, a collector, a thinker, an asker of questions, an explorer, a wayfarer, a person who sees connection and layers of meaning and significance, and a sharer of what I discover on my own journey and quest to become more fully human, free, authentic, truthful, alive and whole. Very modest and low budget by comparison, Prodigalkiwi has been in existence for well over 10-years. It has a small readership, and at its heart it is the record of a journey: my journey, interests and explorations through the fields of theology, spirituality, art, philosophy, literature, religion, psychology, architecture, film and more besides. 

I only discovered Popova via the Australian publication Dumbo Feather (conversations with extraordinary people / issue 36 - 2013) and then most recently via a regular US-originating conversation now called On Being (and before that, Speaking of Faith). I had not seen her site Brain Pickings, but since the On Being conversation I’ve visited it many times. It’s been such a fascinating experience – the intersection of so many interesting themes, stories, and people.

You’ll find the On Being conversation here.  

10 Years Ago Today this Blog Began

And hearty congratulations to Jonny Baker, who on the same day, marked his 10-years. Jonny has been a constant blogging companion on my journey for the whole 10-years. We've yet to share a few Belgian beers and a conversation, but I really want to affirm point 4 of his 10 points reflecting on blogging experiences. The friendships I've made - both those that moved from virtual to incarnational, and those that remained 'virtual' have been life changing for me, and are one of the realities I'm most grateful for after 10-years of practicing what I've elsewhere called, the "spiritual discipline" of blogging. Steve Taylor and Rachel Cunliffe were my two fellow kiwi's that were around or about to be around at about that time, but from memory it was Rachel that lead the way, and she was the first NZ blogger I connected with. In the US it was Alan Creech and Kevin Rains with whom I made early connections.

The Personality of this Blog

 Paul writes – Following Ben Edson’s lead and with a few minutes spare time I visited typealyzer which when you enter in your blog address analyses the personality type (Myers-Briggs) of your blog based on content, and thus presumably its authors or authors.

Here are my results: 

The analysis indicates that the author of http://prodigal.typepad.com is of the type:

INTP - The Thinkers 

“…The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications. 

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality…” 

The picture up there on the left is the one provided by typealyzer with its results. 

When it rains it pours

First problems with this site last week, now this morning my computer has broken and is in need of repair. Back as soon as I'm able.

Why Blog…?

“…I don't blog to be in conversations; but I often find myself in conversations because I blog...” Andrew Dowsett.

Paul writes – I was struck by the above sentence. It’s taken from a comment left by Andrew on a post that my friend and fellow wayfarer Maggi Dawn recently wrote - Writers, Readers and Conversations. Here’s her opening paragraph:

“I've read a bit lately that some Emerging Church bloggers (especially of the persuasion) have become disillusioned with blogging on the basis that it is not truly conversational. I am kind of surprised to read this in a way, because I never thought it was. Did you, honestly?”

Maggi well articulates some of the reasons I blog; an e-mail I received the other day in relation to a blog post I’d put up on this blog starts: “Just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you…” It ends: “…And I was thinking I’d lost god.” It offers me a rare insight into something of what can only be described as mystery – some sense of meaning, some sense of encouragement, some sense of hope, is found by another as they stop for a while on their journey and engage with a blog post. I don’t know how it happens, or why it happens. Maggi is absolutely right when she says – “most of the time the writer doesn’t know about the response of the reader.”

Andrew Dowsett articulates well, another truism for me. “I don’t (most of the time) blog to be in conversation; but (and this is a treasured “but”) I often find myself in conversations because I blog.” I find in blog reading, and the sense of a shared journey, a way of enlarging my vision, of broadening my horizons and of nourishing my own creativity and imagination. I discover that I am not alone.

This also is true. I don’t blog to be in friendships; but I often find myself with wonderful friends because I blog. And thus another mystery becomes apparent – some virtual friendships become icons of incarnation – bread is broken and wine is shared.

My friend Steve Georgiou, in his latest book (it is a rich and luminous journey, slowly and attentively taken in conversation with mystery, woven like fine thread through the everyday and the ordinary) , has a turn of phrase that often strikes me as being true to the experience of many of us who blog. At the end of the day “we are travelers of the heart” (p.32)

You can read Maggi’s post here. If you’re keen you can read more of my thoughts on blogging and creativity by going here. It is a piece I wrote for the NZ journal REFRESH IN 2006.