I am very appreciative of all of you who generously responded to my question about how you feel about writing a blog under your own name or anonymously or pseudonymously. (Thanks, Songbird, for that word! I couldn't come up with it no matter how I wracked my brain when writing the original entry!) :)
I'm also thankful for my conspiracy-theory-prone brother's long and stern email to me on the subject as well. :) He is a very good big brother to me. (When I wrote him an anxious note, hoping he didn't take offense at the way I described him in my blog entry, he wrote back that, far from offensive, he took it as a compliment! He's so great!)
I think what most impressed me as I read through your reflections is that writing under your real name does not expand the subjects you're able to address; rather, it more likely restricts them even more. As I sat with your responses, I realized that the question may be less about anonymity than it is about the genre of blogging itself. It is a wonderful place to do some reflection, but not the place to do all reflection, by any means.
I definitely resonated with Tripp Hudgins's comment: "Blogs are public. Ministry is public." On some level, the degree to which I have chosen a public living out of my faith journey makes my pseudonymity on this blog seem almost self-contradictory.
Nonetheless, I suppose that for now maintaining this thin veil of disguise (however penetrable it ultimately is if one is determined enough to find out), seems like the wiser choice. Perhaps, like Rev. Dr. Mom eventually I may decide to start a second blog (disconnected from this one) in which I write under my professional (and therefore already public) identity.
So, thanks again to all of you for helping me think this through!
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