What is "hō·li·ty"?

What does "hō·li·ty" mean?
When I decided to start a new blog, I read some advice that said, "Decide on your niche! Make it as narrow as possible! Use Google AdWords, blah blah..."
I started to try that... but after writing out a list of possible topics, I found I didn't want to narrow it down. Picking one meant leaving out all the others, which made me sad.
I wanted to write about knitting AND environmental issues AND my garden AND being a Christian. I wanted to write about whatever. Any and all of my interests and how (if, when) they interact.
What to call such a blog? I started playing with words. I don't remember how I got there, but I found myself inventing a word.
"Holity" is a mashup of "whole," "holistic," and "holy," with a -y on the end to say "-ness."
My thoughts on the matter have expanded since I chose that name and started using it; I don't think I can quite remember the order in which they came. I'll just explain where I'm at with it now.
The trouble with writing a Christian blog is that only Christians, really, would read it. The trouble with writing a knitting blog, or a gardening blog, or any other narrow topic, is that it would make me seem ONLY a knitter or ONLY a gardener or ONLY a space exploration enthusiast, etc. Of course, maybe my knitting readers won't want to read the non-knitting posts, and so on. That's the risk I accepted in rejecting the "niche" advice.
I believe in a holistic approach to holiness. We're not supposed to reserve holiness for one day a week. It should be the foundation upon which we build all that we do, all our thought.
My faith should inform my knitting, my gardening, my approach to social issues, and all my writing. Of course, no single blog post is going to bring it all together... I'm not necessarily even going to try to relate things together in each post. Hopefully, over time, all the posts taken together will add up to a body of work that expresses the tagline "Parts. The whole. The Holy."

This blog is about my holity.

3 comments:

  1. Hey Terri.....
    I would read your blog no matter what it was about. I would also like to say that as an atheist, I truly admire how you live your life as a Christian. You are one of the few I know who walks the walk. I was raised a devout Christian, and my brother has also followed that path. I respect his beliefs and also yours. However, I haven't really "come out" to my family. I'm sure they suspect I have many questions and issues with religion as a whole, and they are constantly lecturing, chastising and preaching at me. They want to "save" me, so to speak. My sister-in-law is actually angry at me, because she thinks I "mock the Savior", which certainly isn't true. The way they bombard and attack me, really doesn't seem very "Christian" to be honest. Anyway, you're one of the few that knows about my non-belief, and you accept me as I am as a person, and I really appreciate that. If more religious people acted like you do......I might be convinced to come back to the fold!!

    Hugs......Val

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  2. Oh, by the way, if you link to your blog from Facebook every time you write a new post, it'll remind me to read it. :)

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  3. Aw, thank you, Val!

    I have been thinking I need to publicize my posts... this is the first time I remembered. :)

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