So I'm not the Dalai Lama...

When the Dalai Lama visited New Zealand some time back a friend of mine related to me how her friend (one of those stories) had been to see him at one of his public appearances. My friend's friend apparently said that he was very peaceful, calm, and seemed very happy. To which I replied that I would be peaceful, calm, and happy if you gave me a world trip, had people to look after me all the time, and all I had to do was go around smiling and saying "Peace" to people. The Dalai Lama I am not.

Now I have made the devastating discovery that I am not the Dalai Lama of blogging. Seems I have not universally represented every evangelical on the face of the globe and smiled calmly and said "Peace to all and I hope no-one was left out". Being left out is a grave situation which starts in school when they pick sports teams. And when they pick monitors. You remember monitors from highschool don't you? There was the blackboard monitor, the hall monitor, the I'm-telling-on-you-because-I-saw-you-smoking-behind-the-gymnasium-monitor. I never got picked to be a monitor. I was not represented (well not in the way I would have liked).

Now there are blog monitors. And just like when the hall monitor used to come upon us as we sneaked down the corridor after classes had already started because we were heading for the shopping mall, the blog monitor has come upon me with this:

So it seems to me that by omission, you’ve never offered praise to liberal evangelicals, perhaps...You effectively represent the evangelical world as excluding liberal evangelicals.

Eek. I now realise... Oh my... I haven't represented any evangelicals at all. I haven't mentioned every single time that this is a conservative evangelical and this is a liberal evangelical. Goodness, I've been blogging for two years and I haven't mentioned any evangelicals at all. They aren't Christians if I don't put conservative or liberal in front, right? Shoot, now I have to check every time and remember the labels. A lot of the time I don't even say they are Christians. Some aren't.

This is going to get real tricky. The blog monitor said I don't link to liberal evangelicals. Have you seen the length of my blogroll? I have visited them all but I didn't check their politics. It's going to take me ages to go through and check everyone. And add a big "C" or "L" or "not home when I called" after each name. That's a lot of episodes of Numbers that I'm going to miss. I like Numbers. It's about a maths guy (math for US readers so you aren't left out) who uses equations to solve crimes. Maybe I can get a formula for my blog: x-p={(dx52+a)xL1-(C4+L2-C3)-C1=(C2+L3)x74} Then I won't have to check the labels every time and there'll be no crime. Maybe I'll just pick a number betwen 1 and 10. Can you guess it? If you guess it you are included. If you are really needing to know you can put your number in the comments. Maybe I am of gifted intelligence and can think of more than one number at once.

I wonder if the Dalai Lama has a blog. Some-one came here from Google the other day after searching for "Prince William personal blog". He's not in just now. No, I'm not his Mom. I didn't even make it to hall monitor and you think I'm the Queen of England? So who picks the blog monitors? Are they ambi-political? I mean you'd have to be to represent all the conservatives and all the liberals. And then there's the chocolate eating semi-vegetarians, the rifle shooters, mung bean growers, soap opera fans...

I think I'll stay as I am. I'm not the Dalai Lama of blogging. And it occurred to me... who said I write for evangelicals? Not that there's anything wrong with that. I might even be one. I'm working on a formula as soon as I get done here. I need to know. Labels are chic, and cool, and a girl has to be "in" you know. Even if she doesn't get picked for the softball team and never makes monitor.

Thankyou for participating in my identity crisis. (That's for "C"s and "L"s, everyone in New York and the population of Eketahuna.)

Note: The person quoted was asked if they wish to be named but declined.