Why do you read who you read?

Saturday I wrote about a cool way to create blogrolls out of Google Reader subscriptions. That post explained why the blogs in my blogroll are there - simply enough, they're in my reader. But why are they in my reader? That's easy - because they are interesting to me. And because over time by reading those blogs, sometimes commenting on them and sometimes getting comments from the authors here, I build up a liking for the human being behind the posts. I've met some really cool, insightful people in the last year through blogging.

I do prune my reader's subscriptions from time to time. I don't like to follow more blogs than I can read in a day, for one (I am not good about "catching up" with hundreds of posts). So periodically I get ruthless with those that I end up skipping and skimming anyway. Especially because it seems there's always some new blog that comes along that catches my eye and will replace them anyway. My reader subscriptions seem to bubble between 80 and 100, but out of those I'd say only twenty (if that) are hardcore daily posters, and of that some are photo blogs or else mostly short links to news or other noteworthy items. So I only need to read in a discerning way probably no more than ten blogs a day. I can do that, but not much more than that. And if a blog is inactive for a long period of time, it will get axed. Especially if it is one of the folders in my blogroll, since as my friend Aaron says you don't want to be recommending dead air.

But there's another reason I prune. In the area of Christian blogs at least I am turning away from "professionals". While in other areas I read the pros, in the "Religion" folder most of the blogs are just plain ol' folks like me. Even the hired guns in that category are small church pastors - not that there's anything wrong with that! :o). It just means they're not into the "pastor as CEO" model (mowing the churchyard keeps one humble, perhaps). The common thread in almost all of these blogs is that no one is claiming to have the answer. I mean, we all know Jesus is the answer, but beyond that no one is claiming to have it all figured out. The bloggers I read have unanswered questions, struggles and doubts. They fall down and pick themselves up again. Just like me. But they also have victories, glimpses of glory and joy. By sharing all of that with each other it makes the journey feel not quite so lonely.

When I first started reading blogs and blogging myself I filled my reader (and blogroll) with the pros - the ones everyone else links to, too. "Conferencenti" (those who seem to just flit from one conference to another) and their camp followers, professional presenters, professional authors, theologians who can churn out 2,000-5,000 word blog posts every day, people for whom blogging is as much about marketing themselves, part of their business plan, as it is about questing for God. Let me be clear - there's nothing wrong with that - I am not condemning anybody. It is just not what I am looking for. I don't want to replace one set of people telling me what I should do and think with another, ya know? Some people feel the need for that. I don't. I'd rather be in a group of people all muddling through together. Maybe we're independently rediscovering concepts that a pro could teach us in an hour ("I say! You're doin' it all wrong, boy!" - Foghorn Leghorn). But even so we're doing the searching, not being fed the answers. It makes the process more involving, relational (with God and each other) and in the end, it makes our discoveries ours, a true gift from God.

At least that's how I see it.

So, who's in your reader, and why?