Dear Readers: Comments, Please!

Sometimes, on just a regular day, you find precisely the right cartoon.

A few years from now, no doubt, I will look back on these times and say something like the first part of what this dog says. Here’s hoping I won’t also need to say the second part.  In this household, we’re pretty familiar with barking; our dog Rocky likes to use it to make a point, emphatically — most often when he wants us to try to pick up the stick he’s protecting. It’s not pointless, it’s not incessant, but it can be annoying.

This week, I’m writing with a request. Do you think you regular or occasional readers out there might be able to give me a little feedback? You can do this by just doing a “Comment” right here; more likely, if you’d rather keep it private, please go to the blog itself and send me an email.

The thing is, I’ve been writing this blog for a few months more than a couple of years now. My dear husband and I kind of hashed it out, based on this idea of two different kinds of elements coming together. It was a kind of detour from working on a book with full-length chapters, something I’m ready to go back to now, which is not to say that I’m stopping the blog. In doing these short pieces, I wanted to see if I could get both my voice and my main subjects clear.

Trying to shift over from blog to book is, well, a little like changing equipment to try another way of traversing the same snowy landscape out there on the trails behind our house.

At least in some ways, the blog has served its purpose: I’ve been learning by practicing — kind of like I used to do at the piano. It’s also just been fun for me, most every week. But, as my brother would say, enough about me—What do you think about my blog?

I know that in asking for feedback, I have to be ready to receive it. Gulp.

I’d be so grateful if you’d take just a minute to write me a BRIEF message. Just a handful of words will do. Here are some random examples that might help.

1)   More/less humor, please.

2)   More/less about you and your husband working things out.

3)   More/less about your specific role as pastor’s wife.

4)   Don’t try to wrap things up nicely all the time – we don’t need it.

5)    I like/don’t much like the connections with current events/culture.

6)   Sometimes you’re holding back/ You go too far sometimes.

7)   These blogs were my favorites…These were my least favorites…

8)   Better when you really hold fast to ONE idea.

Thanks you so much for anything you can toss my way. Heck, how else do we improve our products except by knowing something about how they’re received?

I can only WISH that I could create something, with feedback, that could be one one- hundredth as pleasing as the classic Beatles song…”I Feel Fine.”  Some magnificent reverberating guitar there.