People often ask me where the name “Redemption Pictures” came from.

It started when I was in college, making short films and dreaming big dreams about big screens and Hollywood. “Redemption Pictures” was the name I gave to those little movies. When I started the blog without much thought a few years ago, I went ahead and used the same name. Somehow, it seemed to fit.

Last night a reader I’ve never met emailed me to say:

“I’m waiting, wishing, longing for that redemptive cadence. The cadence that was worth all the pain, and that can be appreciated now that the blood, sweat, and tears have been spent.

This is what is inherently beautiful about your blog: your discussion about the hope or promise of redemption, whatever that may look like in the end.”

But I have a confession: I don’t know shit about redemption.

Some days it feels like just another pretty word that used to mean something, something that got lost beneath layers of pain and doubt.

Last night I fell asleep wondering, “Can we really hope for the redemption of all things?”

I woke up today unsure of the answer, but determined to stand up and keep walking until I remember what faith feels like again.

I don’t know anymore where to find redemption pictures, but I know I still recognize them when I see them.

///

I didn’t have much of a blog strategy when I started out a few years ago.

Everything that has happened here has been the result of good luck, bad decisions, the kindness of strangers, hard work, ass-backward clumsiness, and grace. Whatever the hell it is, thanks for being part of it so far.

I hear the whispered question again these days: “Is blogging over?”

(We are an entire world of introspective philosophers collectively anaylyzing our brief moment in the grand strand of internet history, always.)

Is blogging over?

It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times in the past six months. Some days I sit in front of my computer with barely any breath left in my chest, much less any words.

I’ve watched as other writers closed up shop and moved on – people whose words inspired me and helped shape my own voice. Even Deeper Story, the family that has been my home for the past few years, is on her last chapter.

Is blogging over?

I can’t answer that question for you. And the only way I know to answer that question for me is to keep writing.

Today, blogging isn’t over. Because today, I’m still here writing words.

Is blogging over?

I hope the answer is no. There are lot of words that still need to be written, stories to be told, miles to be walked together. And isn’t that what it’s been about all along?

But blogging IS changing. Of course it is – anything that is alive is always evolving, and we are very much alive!

This post is neither “I’m leaving!” nor “I’m back.”

I am in process and I don’t know what the hell I am going to become.

(I think that’s a Bible verse – look it up.)

I’ve missed this. I’ve missed the ways that I am shaped by the words I write in this space, by the conversations we have here.

///

I want to show you something.

I scrawled these paragraphs more than a year ago, in a moment of unguarded truth:

“I love people, words, images, and Jesus. If I could, I’d spend all day every day reading blogs, writing, chatting on Twitter, designing, learning, and listening… I believe that relationships matter more than anything… If there’s some way to support a family by telling people ‘You’re not alone’, I’m going to find it.”

It’s been a year and a half since I wrote those words, but they somehow describe my life today.

To say “it hasn’t been easy” would be an understatement (and a tired cliche). It’s been hell. 

Double shifts as a waiter at a cheeseburger restaurant. Overdue bills. The loss of a house that stopped being home long ago. Scraping by on the generosity of family and strangers. Broken hearts. Failed dreams. Tired nights. Tired mornings. More shitty coffee and desperate tears than I ever imagined possible.

But here I am. Reading, writing, designing, teaching. And I’m grateful.

///

Somewhere along the way — as I found my voice and honed my focus — I chipped off a few too many of the rough edges. I worried a little bit too much about who was reading this, about what you would think, about what you would say.

If I am going to keep writing at all, I’m going to write from my heart. 

So things might look a bit different around here:

I’m changing the address of this blog. Instead of redemptionpictures.com, it’s going to be micahjmurray.com. Here at the beginning of a new year, I want to shake off the dust a little bit, push back the walls of my own “brand” that sometimes crowd me in. I want to just be Micah for a while. (In a day or two, all the old links and everything should still work without a problem.)

I want to write more, but give less thought to whether or not it’s what you expect to read. Maybe less long essays and more unfinished scraps of life as it unfolds. Maybe.

Maybe I’ll write about blogging. There’s this new ecourse I launched called “the Clumsy Bloggers’ Workshop” and I’m so damn proud of it and excited to share it with you. It’s basically everything I’ve learned in the past three years of blogging, packed into seven weeks. Maybe I’m an odd bird amongst writers, but I get excited about design and social media and all that goes into building online communities. So if I feel like writing about that, I will.

I’ll probably keep using profanities. (But you already knew that.) It occurred to me that my blog posts might be shared more on Facebook if I didn’t have cuss words in them, but that’s the worst possible reason I could think of to censor the words that burn in my chest.

///

Whether you’ve been here a while or just stopped by, I’m grateful that you’ve taken a few minutes from your life to read the stuff I write. 

If you’ve written me an email to say that my words have touched your heart, thank you. I wish I could respond to them all. Mostly I don’t know what to say. The questions you ask and the pain you carry are familiar, and I have nothing to say but that we are not alone.

If you’ve financially supported me and my family during this part of our story, thank you. I wouldn’t be here, in this corner of the internet, without you. If you want to support the ongoing disaster that is this blog, in all it’s undefined fury and glory and haphazard angst, I’m grateful for that too. (Click here.)

I can’t wait to see what comes next.

So now I raise my cup of twice-microwaved shitty coffee to you, to us all:

To honesty. To profanity. To uncertainty. To community. 

Cheers.

[ image: Friedwall ]