A year of blogging

Today marks my blogging anniversary. I have now been writing this blog for one year exactly.

[Pause for applause]

Over of the 365 days of this blog’s existence I have written 137 posts, which works out at about a post every two or three days. Not bad at all.

Not a lot of people know this, but I was officially declared dyslexic at school when I was ten years old. As such, writing has never come easily to me.  Even if you see a post on this blog which is composed of even just a few sentences, I can guarantee you that I put quite some time into its composition. Therefore, the fact that I’ve managed to regularly write on this blog every two or three days for a year is really quite an achievement for me 🙂

Motivation

I never really properly explained my motivation for writing this blog, so this anniversary seems like an appropriate juncture for me to take a minute or two to explain the handful of reasons for this blog’s existence…

A while ago I had a personal blog that I maintained for some time. It basically acted as my Facebook page before Facebook existed (Was there every such a time?!). I used it mostly to share photos and links. My posts were rarely very substantial, but I’d occasionally write short entries about things going on in my life. Facebook quickly rendered that blog redundant.

However, every now and then I put up a short post which touched some area of my faith. For example, when I gave a reflection at a prayer service or a retreat I would put up a PDF of the talk. Because of this, a friend who had previously been unaware that I was a Christian, started asking me about my faith and I was able to provide some support to her as she started looking for a local church. This experience showed me the value of talking online about this part of my life and this was part of the motivation for starting this particular blog.

Related to this, shortly before I left England a friend said that she was leaving the Catholic Church. Having gone a long way down this road myself, I spoke to her for some time about it. I asked her some of the questions which I found ultimately couldn’t be satisfactorily answered outside of the Catholicism. A little while later I sent her a few emails explaining some of the issues she had brought up when we had spoken.

When I rejected Catholicism, I rejected what I didn’t know. Looking back, it’s kind of ridiculous that I turned my nose up at so many Catholic doctrines, yet never spent any time looking at what the Catholic Church actually teaches and the reasons she gives for holding those beliefs. Unfortunately, I don’t think this is an uncommon story. So, after writing those emails to my friend, I started thinking about a way of sharing the fruit of that effort with a wider audience and this ultimately found its expression in this blog.

Another reason for starting this blog relates to my personality. I’m the kind of person who, upon discovering something that I think is interesting, simply has to share it with someone else. Until I’m able to share it with someone, it bounces around my head and drives me nuts. Sometimes I just have to let the crazy out. 😉

The final reason for writing this blog is that I find it cathartic. It provides me with a way of clarifying and ordering my thoughts, a way of “thinking out loud”. Although I find the process of writing tedious and frustrating, when I have finished, I feel a great sense of release and satisfaction.

The Future

On this anniversary, I’ve looked back over the last 137 blog entries, considered the direction the blog has taken so far, and thought about the direction I’d like it to take in the coming year…

I found a few series of posts (“Biblical Mary” and “Vatican 2”) that I began, but didn’t continue. Also, one of my goals for this blog was to cover various apologetic topics, but so far I haven’t done much on this. I plan to remedy both of these deficiencies soon.

I think that my posts have very gradually become more personal. I expect this trend to continue in the coming months. I’m currently in the middle of seriously re-examining my vocation: either to marriage, consecrated celibacy, priesthood or some kind of religious life. I’m going to try and do a few “thinking out load” posts about this in the coming months. I’ve also got a few entries I’m currently working on which concern some of the rather painful events of my past. Treat me gently please 😉

Up until now there have been fairly few visitor comments on the blog itself, most people choosing instead to comment on the link I post in Facebook. I’m going to try and change this and nurture a bit more of a community here to discuss the topics of the various posts. I’ve got a few posts in the pipeline which I think should foster some discussion, including the series entitled “Why that nice Catholic boy doesn’t ask you out” 😉

Closing Thoughts

All in all, I love writing this blog and I’d probably still write it even if nobody read it. Still, it’s nice that some people do. Thanks for that.

Tell your friends. 🙂