I love to read. I love to read EVERYTHING, so blogs are a great way to read something when I don't have a book handy, or am just looking for something different. I read all kinds of blogs - my friends' blogs, blogs about art, blogs about video games, blogs about families. I dont discriminate - I love to learn about how other people live their lives, what they find important and the strange/silly/sad/happy things they get themselves into.
For those of you who know me, I am a very liberal person. I grew up in an UU household, I belong to a UU church. I don't believe in God, and I don't pray (more on that later). But there is one blog that I love to read - it's My Charming Kids (the MckMama one). Seriously, I could not be more opposite in beliefs than its author. She is pro-life, Christ centered, adam and eve not adam and steve; and blogs about it all the time. I got into her blog through her photography (she has her own buisness) but stayed reading it because of her son, Stellan. He was born with a heart defect, they thought he had out grown it, it came back but they did a successful surgery and he's perfectly healthy now... anyway, even though she is the complete opposite of me, I find her to be a very tolerant and open person. I like the way she writes, and I like to hear what she has to say on issues. It's still an interesting read for me, even if it's not something I agree with or believe.
Her blog is not without controversy. She has been criticized for deleting hurtful comments, but what blogger out there hasn't deleted hurtful comments? What blows me away is the negativity that people have towards her blog and towards her. Some of the stuff people say to her (or, write that is) is unbeliveable. I don't know if its because its not face to face, but even thinking some of this stuff just baffles me. For instance, she is pregnant with her 5th child (Stellan was #4). She has gotten comments about being selfish for having another child (I really don't get that...) , and one person even went online and researched public records and found out about her financial woes - excuse me, THAT'S NONE OF YOUR BEESWAX! The excuse was that its "public record"... but seriously, why would you go and look that up?
There are entire BLOGS set up that are anti-mckmama. She's not a national figure, you have to get on the internet and seek out her blog in order to read it, so I really don't understand why people spend the time reading the blog, and then get all bent out of shape because of what it did or didn't say. I guess it's all about tollerence. Just because you don't agree with someone, it doesn't mean you hate them, or that they don't deserve to have an opinion or a blog. There are lots of people in this world that I don't see eye to eye with, but there are very very few that I outright hate.
She also tends to attract these people who lurk on her blog and scare away people from commenting by replying to their comments with nasty and hurtful things. The way that her blog is set up is that the comments section becomes more of a forum - you can post a comment directly about the blog entry, or you can reply to someone else's comment (and you can register and receive notice if someone responds to your comment). A while back I commented on an entry she wrote about being a Christian and how some Christians give the whole institution a bad rap, but it was unfair to lump them all together. I responded to her post about how I have first hand experienced some of those "Christians" using their faith as a weapon and that it has made me a little more careful around people, especially if the topic ever gets on faith. I also talked about how I found it really interesting that people interpret the Bible in so many different ways. And then I quoted (had to look it up) Grey's Anatomy - where the lesbian doctor Cali gets in a fight with her very religious father and they quote the Bible at eachother. (sorry, that was a long explanation of a comment). So a few hours later, I see that I got a reply to my comment. And oh man, was this woman PISSED. But, it wasn't MckMama - it was someone who was lurking on the forum, waiting for someone who was a non-believer to post. She attempted to rip me a new one about how I obviously didn't understand Christianity and it was pathetic that I could only knew the Bible from a TV show, and how I lied about praying for Stellan.
Now, wait just a minute.
First, who is this woman, and why is she lurking around a blog that she doesn't write? Second, why is she calling me a liar? She's right that I didn't pray. I don't pray. But when did I ever claim that I was praying for Stellan? I did think about Stellan a lot when he was going through all his stuff, and I did hope that the doctors were going to be able to fix his heart. But, it's not praying. And Third - I know a lot about the Bible, and I didn't learn it from Grey's, thankyouverymuch. I learned it from READING IT (GASP! She's read the Bible!?) and from SUNDAY SCHOOL (GASP! They talk about the Bible at UU Churches?!) I am no Theologian, I don't claim to be, my dad didn't sit us down and read the Bible to us every night, I didn't go to vacation Bible school, but yes I have picked it up (no, it didn't burn my hands) and read it. (I actually own this little book of sermons and prayers for people who volunteer, serve their country etc - I really enjoy reading it...) The whole point of that quote was an example of how people interpret the Bible differently... (also, I thought it was pretty cool that Cali still has her faith even though many in her faith call her a sinner.)
Well, I wrote a very polite response back to her, and then read another reply that she left on a comment very similar to mine about how it was OBVIOUS that men weren't supposed to sleep with men because anal sex was painful... (I laughed out loud for reals here). I was very tempted to leave her a comment about how I was sorry that she had a bad experience, but that argument was the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
MckMama's blog post the next day - about how she likes to hear different opinions and to agree to disagree with people, and liked when people of different opinions, lifestyles, beliefs commented. (Weirdo lurker didnt leave any more comments - win).
So yeah, I read a lot of blogs, and I read this blog even though I don't love everything that is posted. I am tolerant of the differences between us, and I think it makes me a better person to hear her out.
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