Editing

Since discovering the ability to self-publish kindle books a couple of months ago, I have felt rather excited about the prospect of putting some longer form writing out there onto the inter-web.  However, given my occupation, I have also felt the keen need for some good editing.  Most people, especially in the blogosphere, feel they are entitled and perhaps even compelled to say whatever comes to mind.  Experience has taught me that this is not a good idea; it may get you into trouble, you may say things that you regret, you may say things that hurt people, you may just end up giving people who have it in for you ammunition.
Editing yourself is not censorship, it is being a responsible member or society.
So I came to the task of editing the rather prolific amount of material that I have written surrounding the life and death of my brother Jonathan.  Written over the course of seven years, it ranges widely and wildly in content and theme, some is raw, some is polished, some is poetry (see the below blog entry, Seven), some is prose, narrative, discursive, theological, there was just a heap of dissimilar parts.
There were some shiny things in the pile, there were some painful things in the pile, there was also a lot rusty, maudlin junk that needed to be done away with.
But that was not always easy, because that rusty, maudlin junk was a record of some very deep water, like an old ship that once proudly sailed through a horrific storm and came out a little damaged. It represented some things I thought and felt, at moments when my approach to life was less than circumspect and pastoral. We all have a right to such times, such thoughts, such words, but perhaps, unless we're C.S. Lewis, we should not inflict them on the world.
Freedom should come with responsibility.  Freedom to drive a car comes with the responsibility to obey the rules.  Freedom to own a gun should, despite some who would frame it in more rhetorical terms, be accompanied by the responsibility to register the weapon, keep it away from those who would misuse it, and learn the proper and safe handling of the weapon.
Words are weapons sharper than knives, quoth INXS.  In an age of Twitter it seems that we are throwing knives rapidly and blindly.  How many times in the past year or so have you heard about someone "catching it" for something they said on Twitter and then acting surprised that anyone took notice?  Haven't we figured it out?  Even with the way language is cheapened and devalued these days, the right words can still move mountains and the wrong words can still ruin lives.
Be careful, little children, what you say