Blogging and the search for significance apart from God

From the official C. S. Lewis Facebook page:

What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could 'be like gods'--could set up on their own as if they had created themselves...invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.

-- Mere Christianity

I'm in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I've been at a blogger retreat held by the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, an organization that is working to bolster news coverage of state and local government, an area of journalism that has been declining in parallel with shrinking mainstream press budgets. The Franklin Center has Watchdog State Capitol reporters in about 20 states, including Pat McGuigan in Oklahoma City. The weekend was informative, filled with ideas for improving the way we cover stories and communicate with our readers. It was also encouraging to be around bloggers from all over the country who face the same sorts of challenges and opportunities. We "get" each other. Most of the event was in a conference room, but we had time for fun, too, including a jeep tour of a desert wilderness area.

To come across that C. S. Lewis quote as the retreat ends is a bracing reminder that, for all that we do to serve our communities through blogging, the ultimate problem behind all the world's miseries is not one that we can solve with reporting or persuasion. Our work as watchdog bloggers can ameliorate the results of mankind's rebellion against God as that rebellion manifests itself in government corruption, oppression, and self-dealing. To blog about government is a way in which those of us gifted to dig and research and write can love our neighbors, but it doesn't solve the root problem that Lewis describes.

I must not lose sight of the real struggle in human history and in my own heart, and I must not neglect the means -- the Word, the sacraments, prayer, and fellowship -- that God has appointed to strengthen and transform my mind and heart. I also must not neglect to spur myself, my wife and children, my family and friends to sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts, to be outposts of His kingdom in a fallen world.