Peace to all you readers, regulars, long-time, or occasional.
After some discernment, I’ve decided to wrap up daily posts here when I get to the end of Amoris Laetitia in one more month. Assuming hackers don’t crack the code here, everything will stay up, but regular bits from me will largely cease. I will monitor comments for some weeks, but unless you email me, I wouldn’t expect a same-day reply. WordPress changed its admin platform for bloggers, and I’ve decided not to spend time learning a new system when I was perfectly adapted to the old. Plus, the WP programmers have rather botched the code for accompanying images on posts, so …
I’m turning my attention to other projects, musical and writing, and even writing more musicals. I don’t need a blog platform to advance any of these. I’m getting to the stage in life where I’m taking seriously the time and energy I spend doing things. There are a lot of things worth doing. Sitting in front of a computer at 6AM or 11:30PM in my pajamas, t-shirt, and slippers isn’t one of them.
I first went online in the late 90s, having discovered that people of wide geographic spread were clumping together to discuss liturgy and music. That was kind of cool. That led to a regular writing gig in the outside world that lasted sixteen years. And it eventually landed me as a mostly persona non grata in the conglomeration once known as “St Blogs Parish.” There, I mostly got to write things I couldn’t and wouldn’t write as a staff member in a parish. Online, I was just a parishioner. And not at all a bigwig like other folk who made a cottage industry, large or small, out of blogging. So I got to annoy the hell out of a handful of people who took themselves and their Catholic culture too seriously. And I made a lot of friends, including a few from the other side of the fence.
Some people who weren’t friends regularly reported me to my boss and the occasional bishop. Things like that happen in real-life parishes, too. I’d like to think I learned enough from that to not do it to the people I served in real life, and that I could develop open ears for people of any opinion to have a hearing with me. On that point, mission accomplished. Thanks to Liam and a few others, I can look with more honesty at what I say and do in the real world.
The bulk of content here these days involve the documents of the Church. I don’t even know how that got started. I know I get annoyed when self-satisfied Catholics of any stripe cherry-pick their way through Church teaching to bend God’s will to their own. We never did that here. So if I feel a bit self-satisfied on that front, the good news is that there’s only another four weeks of it.
I may have two or three more farewell posts to offer if I feel inclined to look back, around, or ahead. Otherwise, there’s a daily dose of Pope Francis before the curtain falls. After that, keep in touch. Email is good. Call if you have my number. I might stay on facebook.