{"id":1557,"date":"2006-11-16T02:20:19","date_gmt":"2006-11-16T02:20:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/when-you-write-to-me.html"},"modified":"2006-11-16T02:20:19","modified_gmt":"2006-11-16T02:20:19","slug":"when-you-write-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/when-you-write-to-me.html","title":{"rendered":"When you write to me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Folks regularly write to me to tell me they appreciate that I&#8217;m accessible on this blog, and the letters I&#8217;m getting are both encouraging and in need of a little bit of a response. The first thing I want you to  know is this: I&#8217;m an ordinary guy. So, when you write to this ordinary guy, here are some things he would appreciate: <!--more|inline--><br \/>\nThe reason I have my e-mail available on the sidebar is because I&#8217;m not too busy. Lots of letters start with this: &#8220;I know you&#8217;re busy, and I&#8217;ll understand if you&#8217;re too busy&#8230;&#8221;. Guess what? I&#8217;m probably no busier than you, and in fact I might be less busy. So, I suggest you strike that comment because that way I won&#8217;t have to write to you and say, &#8220;Hey, friend, I&#8217;m not too busy.&#8221;<br \/>\nBut, there&#8217;s one thing you&#8217;ve got to be careful of: my father&#8217;s dad was from Scotland and so my parents came up with the annoying little trick of spelling my first name with only one &#8220;t&#8221;. So, my name is &#8220;Scot&#8221; and not &#8220;Scott.&#8221; My mom and dad were big on this spelling, so when I was in kindergarten the first time (I get held back &#8212; that&#8217;s another story), on the first day, the teacher wrote all of our names on the board and asked everyone to erase their name when it was their turn. Well, there I was staring at the board, the only one who had not yet gone forward to erase a name, and my teacher wondering just how dense I was. Denseness was not my problem. My not going up there to erase &#8220;Scott&#8221; from the board was a sign of my independent streak. My name was not there: it read &#8220;Scott&#8221; and not &#8220;Scot.&#8221; That was the beginning of the end for me: a kindergarten dropout.<br \/>\nPlenty write me about other blogs or to suggest topics, and these have been helpful for all of us. So, keep the ideas coming. If you yourself have a blog post you think is really good, say so: I won&#8217;t see you as bragging, and I won&#8217;t tease you on Weekly Meanderings, and you&#8217;ll realize that lots of my links on Saturday come from folks making suggestions.<br \/>\nIf you comment and refer to someone else&#8217;s blog where there is a fuller discussion or to a book or magazine article, help us out by giving a thumbnail summary. It helps all of us.<br \/>\nIf you get a little worked up and say some things you shouldn&#8217;t in the comment box, I&#8217;ll write you a personal e-mail. I hope you don&#8217;t get upset, but know that on my blog I have to maintain what I think is a proper courtesy. I&#8217;m not perfect, but that&#8217;s the way it is. In nearly every case those to whom I write have been gracious about the decisions I&#8217;ve had to make.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Folks regularly write to me to tell me they appreciate that I&#8217;m accessible on this blog, and the letters I&#8217;m getting are both encouraging and in need of a little bit of a response. The first thing I want you to know is this: I&#8217;m an ordinary guy. So, when you write to this ordinary&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing-blogging"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>When you write to me - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/when-you-write-to-me.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When you write to me - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Folks regularly write to me to tell me they appreciate that I&#8217;m accessible on this blog, and the letters I&#8217;m getting are both encouraging and in need of a little bit of a response. The first thing I want you to know is this: I&#8217;m an ordinary guy. So, when you write to this ordinary&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/when-you-write-to-me.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-11-16T02:20:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"xscot mcknight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"When you write to me - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2006\/11\/when-you-write-to-me.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"When you write to me - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Folks regularly write to me to tell me they appreciate that I&#8217;m accessible on this blog, and the letters I&#8217;m getting are both encouraging and in need of a little bit of a response. 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