There is a very exciting and promising new blog
out there. If you check it out, you will be
among the first to read it. But before I tell you where it is and what it's
about, please allow me a moment or two to talk about my friendship with Hugh
Elliott, the writer behind Standing Room Only,
a blog currently on hiatus.
Hugh and I were both a part of the Salon blog
community. We started our blogs in 2002, he in July and me in December. When I
began Real Live Preacher I was touched by how quickly and completely the Salon
bloggers accepted me into their community. No one was
more welcoming than Hugh Elliott. And that's really something if you consider
that he is a gay man living with AIDS in Los Angeles. We're not the sort of
people who generally hang out together, if you know what I mean?
Hugh was the first person to comment on the
second post ever at Real Live Preacher. The original comments are
still online at the salon server, and you
can hear his welcoming voice even before he knew if I would welcome him back. If you keeping reading the comments, you'll see that Hugh jumped in to
defend me when Raven asked a very straightforward question. It was a mild
confrontation, but there was Hugh - he had my back.
I didn't know how to work the Salon blog
software very well, so I decided I should ask someone. I can see now why I chose
Hugh. He was delighted to help me, and I think our friendship began in earnest
there. I'm a Christian, as you know. Hugh was...uh...well, let's see - a man of
the world, you might say. Been a lot of places and done a lot stuff. Seen a lot
of things. We became friends because we respected each other. And in time we even
came to love one another. I've never met Hugh face-to-face, but I do love him
and cherish his friendship.
It's interesting to me that when I turn off my
conscious mind and write from the gut, Hugh often appears as a symbol of some
kind. He is in this post
and is the friend I write about in this post,
though he is not named. He plays a major role in this two-part fantasy piece.
It ended up in my book.
So that's the story of Hugh and me. Here's the
story of his new blog:
Hugh watched my "How to
Read The Bible" video series and decided he was going to read the
New Testament and Psalms for himself. And now he's decided to blog his way
through this little adventure.
Do you get this? Do you know how interesting
and rare this is? A man with no real adult connection to the Christian Church is
going to read our scriptures and write about what he finds there. This is a
spiritual experience/quest for Hugh, who now calls himself a "Christianist."
(He explains what he means by that on the new blog) He and I are going to
email and talk on the phone during this journey. I guess I'm a kind of guide or
mentor for him in this, but I will definitely only be there to give careful
feedback when asked. I don't want my insider views getting in the way of his
honest writing.
He's no Biblical scholar, so I'm sure there
will be many times when he is very unorthodox. So what? Good! That's what I want
to hear. I want to hear what a gay man in Los Angeles has to say about this
collection of writings that is so precious to us. I'm looking forward to it. I
think you'll enjoy it too.
And now, let's give a big blogosphere welcome
to
Bible Versus
rlp
