Once upon a time (2005) I started a blog to push me to write more regularly, on blogspot with the title “Gregg’s Gambles”. Behind that alliterative title was a hope to take risks and be honest with some of my thoughts about life, leadership, and church. Re-discovering old friends from seminary who were already in the blogging world led to an awareness of the emerging church movement, and sparked some writing along those lines. It was the heady early days of blogging, the age before social media.
A wonderful surprise of the writing journey came as I interacted with Quaker bloggers from around the country. Robin M., on What Canst Thou Say became a real flesh and blood friend because of our online connection. Martin Kelly’s Quaker Quaker, though, exposed me to so many more people, and shaped my writing for quite awhile. I was most prolific in 2006 and 2007, including a shift away from blogspot to a hosted wordpress blog on my own domain at greggsgambles.com.
Alas, two things conspired to severely curtail my blogging. My kids getting older has meant the joy of more of their activities to be part of, at the expense of time to write. And Facebook hit the tipping point in our culture, and took over sharing the fun, relational aspects of my life.
So, in December 2010, when it was time to renew the domain name for Gregg’s Gambles, I realized I hadn’t posted since April. It didn’t seem responsible to pay for hosting a relatively dormant blog when a free wordpress blog would easily handle my infrequent posting. So, goodbye “Gregg’s Gambles”, and hello “Out of Doubt”.
Where did the 3.0 version of the blog get its title? Since the 5th grade, the Lord of the Rings has been a shaping literary experience for me. One of the most moving parts for me is the rescue of Minas Tirith. The “Out of Doubt” title comes from Eomer’s song, on horseback next to the body of King Theoden, as he looks ahead with little hope at overwhelming odds:
Out of doubt, out of dark to the day’s rising
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope’s end I rode and to heart’s breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
The older I get, the more desperate the world looks to me. To move forward courageously despite the outlook is moving to me…and as dark as these lines are, they result in a dawning of a new day.
I choose to move forward, too…being as faithful as I am able to the leading of the One who calls me forward.
All the old content is still here—use the category and archived date list at the bottom (with apologies for broken links that are sure to be there). I still blog as inspiration hits, or of course when we work each Christmas to find the best versions of various Christmas carols!