repairers

Via Jeff Bilbro, I see this useful reflection by Bonnie Kristian on what a Christian “vision for repair” might look like. Kristian points out that repair has become a theme among thoughtful evangelicals in recent years, and following her links … okay, let me be honest here: I was wondering whether anyone had noticed that this is a theme I wrote about often and at some length for a couple of years, starting with this post. (For more entries, click the tag on that post or this one.) And nope: not one reference to my work.

I wonder about this! I don’t have analytics enabled on this site (and never will) so I don’t know how many readers I have — if I have 17 readers, then it’s no surprise that I haven’t been cited. If I have a good many more than that, then two possibilities seem likely:

(a) I’ve gotten some people thinking along these lines who wouldn’t have been thinking about it otherwise, but they forgot they got it from me — which is something that happens on the internet all the time. For instance, I often link to something without remembering to cite the person who alerted me to it, or indeed without remembering that anyone alerted me to it. It’s the way of the internet, and if you’re going to write on the internet you have to expect it.

(b) All those other people are simply riding the same wave I was riding — following, perhaps, some of the same writers I cite in that original Invitation & Repair post.

I would like to know which of these three options is the true one. I am not craving credit, I’m really not, I promise! (You should believe me if and only if you think I have sufficient self-knowledge to be trusted on this point.) But if you’re a writer it’s always useful to know whether you’re making a difference or are simply part of a trend that would go on just the same without you.