For some reason my time and mental energy have seemed limited lately, at least in this space. I can’t point to any one thing, though there are a few suspects. My attentions have been focused elsewhere, and this may explain both the dearth of posts and their relative lack of depth.

J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote that “It is a curse to have the epic temperament in an age devoted to snappy bits.” Unfortunately, snappy bits seem to be all I can produce these days. But I think that will soon change.

I am learning more about myself. I find that I live to fix, I live to create. Opportunities to “fix” I’ve had in spades recently, as a website that I do the webmastering for has had numerous performance problems recently. All appear to be resolved now. Wooohoo! [Bill does the Dilbert engineer’s victory dance. Be glad you can’t see it]

Then there’s creativity. I’m not a particularly good artist, but one area where I have (if I can say it) been gifted is in the area of software development. I consider it more art than science, and I believe God himself is a programmer. The proof I have is the DNA in every cell of your body. In a small, imperfect, and infinitely less elegant and innovative way, my work on the code for Bloo has been an inspiration to me, because it is my imitation of the creativity of God.

I have been working quite hard on Bloo, preparing to put it into the public domain. I wonder sometimes if this is worth it. I’m not doing it for money, certainly (it will be free, after all). For pride? Possibly. I would be a liar to say that I don’t take pride in my code, because I do. I think every good developer does. But in some ways I believe that this is almost an act of worship. Hear me out: we are told to do everything heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. Maybe God will be pleased with my imitation of him, in ways I don’t understand. And perhaps someone will take pleasure in being able to use Bloo to create their blog.

So in my free time-slices I am working heartily on Bloo. I have a lot to do before the end of the month. I’m taking risks in the code, re-factoring some pretty important parts, to get it in the most understandable and maintainable form possible. I’m very thankful I get to work on this. I’m hopeful that when Bloo is released I will be able to devote more time to other creative pursuits, such as writing my stalled novel, or playing my guitar more.

And teaching. That’s one thing that I am concentrating very hard on these days, regardless of the doings in Bloo. I’m so thankful that God is allowing me to teach again!

Good night Blogosphere. God loves you!

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men . . .

– Colossians 3:23 (ESV)