Blogging Mentor Award

My good friend, Josie of C'est la Vie, recently and very graciously bestowed on me this rather flattering award, "The Blogging Mentor Award". It appears that the award is in general for mentors, inspirations or people who have been encouraging to fellow bloggers to continue blogging or who are such characters that they are forces of nature in the blogosphere.

Wow! I am certainly pleased to be thought so highly by Josie as to get this award. The strange thing is that I would immediately name Josie as one of my blog mentors too. Before this degenerates into a meeting of the Mutual Admiration Society, if Josie thought that I was her mentor and I thought of Josie as my mentor, .......is this a case of the blind leading the blind?

Being a mentor is both a great responsibility and a great privilege. It implies both a certain stature and status but in the humble service of others. The originator of this award has used the imagery of a Greek philosopher mentoring his student or disciple. It is an imagery that captures the essence of mentoring. However, I hope that Josie does not expect me to follow in the footsteps of such greats as Plato who was forced to end his life by drinking poison because of what he taught.

But enough of this senseless chatter. I have appreciated everybody's input and encouragement since I started blogging. All of you, including some who have left the blogging scene, have been all part of my wonderful learning experience here. However, it is now my duty to pass this award on to 5 of my mentors. They are.....

1. Claudia. I have always felt that Claudia kind of "adopted" me and has made it her role to challenge me and probably all her other readers to expand our minds, our experience and our experimenting with this blogging media. She gets me in a lot of trouble but its all fun.

2. Meggie . I am always encouraged by Meggie's blog. Her stories are awesome and her characters really come to life. This have given me a desire to aspire to be as good a story teller too. I also remember her gracious defence of my complete ignorance and lack of appreciation of quilting. Who knows? Maybe one day, I'll quilt! Don't hold your breath though.

3. Jocelyn. Jocelyn's blog has just always been an inspiration for me. From her choice of name which is "O Mighty Crisis" to her posts on her work, family and travels, I am inspired by her humor, joy and positiveness in the face of the chaos that is life. She reminds me to have fun blogging.

4. Dave. Dave was probably one of my earliest blogging buddies and over time, I found that we had very similar interests and outlooks of life. We even had very similar ideas for blogging posts. This was, of course very encouraging to find someone who shared do much a common interest in the same things. However, Dave was more than that. He was very pro-active in giving encouragement in his comments and he was particularly supportive of my posts about my Christian faith.

5. Marja. Marja is a relatively recent acquaintance on the blogosphere but she is the essence of encouragement. I think she is a natural mentor and qualifies to be a force of nature in the blogosphere.