Blogging During Sabbatical

My former intern Rebekah Stern, catching my Camp Newman Swine Flu posts that someone put up on Facebook, wondered why I was blogging during my sabbatical. She knew that I had determined to cut myself off from all my electronics, as a way of detoxing. Why was I now posting on the Or Am I? blog?

I wrote her back thus:

I'm not really public blogging, except:

1. While up at camp, I planned to do some blogging to make camp real for the parents of our delegation, and for the rest of the congregation.
2. During this flu scare, I wanted to be ahead of the issue, to help control the message
3. I found during my first 3 sabbatical weeks when I went "cold turkey" that I needed the opportunity to write because it helped me reflect and make meaning. Michelle and I came to realize that I needed some place to process my experiences.

So I really have 2 other private blogs now. The first is this sabbatical blog. No one reads it but me. Sometimes I send a blurb to my wife separately, but I don't think she even knows the URL. I write long and short posts just to make meaning, capture blessings, find excitement, etc. Just for me.

The second blog is a Kipnes/November Road Trip travel blog for our trips, really 2 months on the road (from the time we left our home for Camp through when we return from cross country). That one, written primarily by me, with some dictation by Michelle and a required weekly post by the kids, will become the family heirloom from the trip. We pass that URL on to extended family and anyone intensely interested in following our trip (non-congregant, of course).

I am also experimenting with Twitter, but that's part of my sabbatical goals, to learn how to use it for synagogue purposes. Rabbinical growth, if you will...

Writing really helps me capture, hold onto, express what I am doing/thinking/experiencing.