As I expected, my blog has been a work in progress, a creative and social enterprise that has weathered good and bad times, suffered from my own anger, mental illness, and dyslexia, and evolved into something I couldn’t quite picture but which I now love, thanks to the patience, support, and kind words of so many of my readers. I thank you. The blog is the story of a life, a living memoir, a risky experiment that paid off.

Bedlamfarm.com is, in fact, finally becoming a center of creativity and gentle warmth, as I hoped it could be. For this to happen, I had to grow older and grow up, take my therapy seriously, curb my anger, and end years of pointless, disruptive, and distracting assaults by various trolls and e-jerks eager for conflict, criticism, and cruelty. I have successfully confronted that issue and deleted it away.

I had to stop reading books about spirituality and start to live a spiritual life, which did, in fact, transform me.

Over the past few months, as I came to terms with the gap between what I wanted to be and what I was doing, the blog reformed itself and indirectly. I can thank many different things and people for this – honest feedback, a loving partner, a loyal dog, a host of spiritual thinkers, a presumptuous cat, my photography, my flowers, and a few jarring medical experiences to wake me up and get me moving.

And I guess I have to thank the many angry, hostile, and disconnected people who finally taught me what I didn’t want to be as well as who I was.

The blog has benefited from all of this change and exploration. The comments are thoughtful and valuable, the various new designs are comfortable and beautiful, and my pictures have offered a warmer and more beautiful dimension to the blog and what it stands for. Pictures don’t lie. The blog is credible.

Reader Nancy Frakes of New York sent me a generous donation this morning and added this letter, perfectly capturing what I want the blog to be and what it is becoming. I was happy to get it. It made feel that the blog is taking shape in the way it was always meant to be:

“Hi, Jon,

Thank you for all the wonderful topics you address on your blog. Like many others, I enjoy hearing about Zip and seeing his photos! He is a very special creature and a wonderful addition to your farm and to your and Maria’s lives.

I love your book suggestions and have read several of them. I love seeing Maria’s work and your flower photos. Most of all, I applaud you for encouraging compassion and kindness in whatever sphere of influence we find ourselves in. It’s the one thing someone can do to improve the world.  So, thank you…”

Thank you, Nancy, for appreciating my efforts to make the blog a better place. You precisely identified what I have been trying to do for so many years and working hard to do.  It was not easy, never a straight line. I work very hard on the blog daily, and a message like this makes me feel good and hopeful about what I am doing.

My hero journey was anything but heroic. It began in a cabin on top of a mountain where I went to think for a year with two dogs, and it has led me to the second Bedlam Farm and a rich and loving life with Maria. What a trip. I feel as if I have landed, I am where I want to be doing what I want to do.

The blog can be a rough place sometimes, just as life in the country can. It takes a lot of work, patience, self-awareness, and discipline to feed it and make it relevant to people. I know who I am and who I want to be. That was the task.

In many ways, the blog has been the most challenging creative thing I have undertaken. No one who knew or worked with me thought it was possible or wise. A doctor who tested my Dyslexia told me I could never manage a daily blog. He is now a faithful reader. Photography has helped me tell my story in a new and powerful without argument or anger. I once loved to write about politics, which has become a sorry poison for the soul. I keep my distance from it and argue with no one about it.

Nancy has noticed and understood the things I knew I had to work on to make the blog a kind, gentler, and valuable place. I try to make people think without telling them what to do.

Nancy’s kind message tells me I am edging closer, and I am grateful for her support in so many ways. Stay in touch, Nancy, and thanks for the kind note.