One of the classic television shows of all time was Seinfeld. Love it or hate it, there is no denying the exalted place it occupies in the history of American TV sitcoms. It was, by its own admission, “a show about nothing.”
I have a friend of many years who is a very popular blogger with a national following. He’s one of the nicest people you’ve ever met. His purpose in writing, as he puts it, is simply to spread joy. So, he told me, he has a rule about his blogs: No politics and no religion. Anything else is fair game. For the most part he writes about places he has traveled, plus he includes a weekly list of new jokes. Read his blog, and you get healthy doses of escapism and laughter. No wonder he’s so popular. He jokes that he is like Seinfeld, “a blog about nothing.”
No politics and no religion … I get that. Very few topics are more likely to spark anger and increase the national divide than either of those two. And increasingly, it’s hard to talk about the one without also discussing the other. That’s because our politics have become our religion. Pastors and church leaders (especially those who operate in the public eye) rarely recognize any boundaries between church and state. Recently an evangelical leader even suggested that we shouldn’t preach very often about The Beatitudes or Matthew 25 or I Corinthians 13 because those passages are (his words) “too WOKE.” When you critique Jesus because His words offend your politics, well, you may be “evangelical,” but at least be honest enough to confess that you’re no longer “Christian.”
And so, we who write struggle to find topics that inspire people but don’t make anyone uncomfortable. A friend of mine calls it “pablum publishing.” I’m obviously a little offended by that – most of all, I suspect, because I fear he’s correct.
The other side of that coin, however, is that maybe there are moments when we just need to breathe (or to eat pablum, to maintain the metaphor) … when we need to step away from the stress of simply being alive in this difficult epoch of history … when, in order to survive reality, we need occasional diversions from it. A friend and I are going to a baseball game tomorrow. He’s a former state senator. We made a deal: No discussing politics while the game is being played. Baseball should bring joy. It should be an antidote to the muck and mire of what we’re living through. So, while not denying either muck or mire, we’ve decided at least to give ourselves a break from it for nine innings. Add a hotdog and some popcorn, and the effects of the experience can be downright medicinal.
Music does the same for many of us. It carries us to a higher place where we can find peace (and maybe can even transport a bit back with us when we descend again into raw life). I read novels and watch old movies as forms of temporary escape. Art. Hikes. Gardening. Golfing. Cooking. There are so many options. Wordsworth was correct when he suggested that The World is Too Much With Us. There’s no denying that we are called to face it … and to use whatever powers we have to fix it. But to do so, once in a while we need an oasis from it. Just a temporary place to rest and heal. So, I read my friend’s blogs. And, I write my own. Even if they are “blogs about nothing,” well, nowadays … maybe that’s something.