Need your feedback!

I've been thinking about this dear old blog. I remember starting it, almost as a writing journal, with all of one person who even knew about it. Somehow that grew to a smaller handful, who are still, I think, among my faithful readers. This blog served an indispensable purpose in my life during a very depressing time when I had moved away from my church community here in Eugene. It was my connection to other people who saw the world like I did. It was church for me.

Then, just over a year ago, we moved back to Eugene. I was able to process with real people regularly and my need to pour things out into this blog diminished. However, I also found blogging to be a good way to keep family and friends updated on the little happenings in our family. I feel like I have veered far from my blog address' declaration of "attempting transparency" and instead it has become primarily a sparse mommy blog. Seeing my crafts and silly tidbits about my children is not what I originally intended the word "transparency" to denote, though it is certainly a piece of what life looks like.

However, the last year has been one of the most difficult of my entire life, and I have not necessarily wanted to proclaim our difficulties over and over. I have feared communicating about it all would be like asking for sympathy, or pity, or being transparent about my thought processes and faith in the midst of the hardships would seem trite or pithy. So I have simply remained silent (here, that is). Not that I was a prolific blogger before, by this year has seen a significant drop in postings and even more so in dialog.

Now what? I like writing. I'd like to get back to it. I like sharing ideas and truths spurred by the "mundane" details of my life (which could be called "signals of transcendence" thanks Peter Berger). However, I am also curious about what you, my reader, would like from this blog. What would you like more of? Less of? I know I have several draft posts to return to answering a question or two from you.

Here are a few of my hopes for topics in 2010:
Something about where we are now and why the last year has been the hardest, and yet best year of my life.
Something biographical about my history with food and cooking.
Something clearer about how and why I rejected the modern ministry model.
Some attempt at a highly controversial, and yet really insignificant, perspective I am developing about the early chapters of Genesis.

But here's another question for you - do I need to split into yet another blog? Is it too strange a combination to have mommy-crafts intermingled with theological musings? Or is that just me and that's okay?

If you have feedback or topic ideas/questions you don't want to share publicly, feel free to email me directly at mariannescrivner (at) gmail (dot) com