Repost: A Velvet Crumb

March was kind of a banner month around here. I was invited to guest post for both Rachel Held Evans as well as Hemant Mehta, and I came out as gay affirming. Things were definitely kind of crazy around here for a bit. In the midst of that, this post kind of went by the way-side. So I'm bringing it back for another look.

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When you read blogs about blogging, one of the rules that folks tend to give is to make sure that you have an attention grabbing title. This is an area where I'm not particularly adept, so I'm always on the lookout for phrases that catch my attention. Something that says, "Hey, that looks like an interesting post, I should definitely give it a read! And then pass it on to all of my friends! And subscribe to the RSS feed!"

So yesterday when I was sitting in the green room at church, I was delighted to hear the phrase "a velvet crumb" tumble from the lips of my best friend (he was eating a red velvet doughnut and noticed a crumb on his shirt). I made a mental (and verbal) note that this was a fantastic title and I should absolutely blog about it.

Come home, bust open the laptop, plug that title in, because it's awesome, and...nothing.

Because you can't write about a velvet crumb (the Velvet Fog is a whole other matter). Well, maybe YOU can, but I can't. There's just nothing there. I mean, it's a crumb for heaven's sake.

A cool title doesn't mean anything if there's not content there to back it up.

I think I sometimes do that with my faith.

I get all chatty about God being love, but then I don't act in a very loving way toward the person who pissed me off with a Facebook post that I disagree with. I talk about helping the poor, but I really just want an iPod Touch for myself so I can play Words With Friends. I will go on about how we should avoid dogma, but just think about challenging a belief that I hold to strongly.

The ideas sound good. But the content? There can be a lack at times.

But sometimes they match up. Sometimes I practice what I preach. I behave in a way that is loving with people that make me angry. I use my finances in a way that are unselfish. I hold loosely to an idea that feels like it should be held tightly.

Sometimes the velvet crumb is actually a story worth reading.

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What do you do when you find that your content isn't living up to your title? What is your favorite blog/book title?