The Saturday Evening Blog Post

It's that time again! Head over to ElizabethEsther.com to participate in this month's Saturday Evening Blog Post by submitting a link to your favorite post of the past month.

Stick a fork in me. . .

I'M DONE!

(One whole month of freedom! I might even, like, start blogging again. No promises.)

The Saturday Evening Blog Post

Head over to ElizabethEsther.com for the first issue of the Saturday Evening Blog Post, inspired by the recent "defining post" carnival over at Conversion Diary. Submit your own favorite post of the past month, from your own blog!

I chose my post about the sunset I saw on the drive down to DC, even though it's a woefully inadequate post that doesn't come close to describing what I experienced. But, man, that sunset! It was life-changing. I've been looking at the sky for weeks now, and I'm amazed every single time. Clouds are always different! And gorgeous! And when there are no clouds? Still gorgeous!

Look up!

My Question Answered by Fr. Z

I'd e-mailed the ever-knowledgeable Fr. Z about an experience I had at Mass this weekend, and he answered me! Part of me feels really cool for making it up on his website, even though I know it's just a question. The other part of me just wishes his answer hadn't been what I'd really known all along it would be - that no, the Consecration wasn't valid, and I didn't receive the Eucharist unless I was lucky enough to have received a Host that had been reserved from a prior Mass. Read my question and his answer here: Words for the Precious Blood twice, none for the Body

Dig Kabri

Just added a new blog to the sidebar, which is supposed to begin chronicling an archeological dig taking place at the Tel Kabri site in Israel this summer. Should be interesting. Check it out!

Why I blog the way I do

I have a sneaking suspicion that someone I know, or someone who knows someone I know, may have stumbled upon this blog. I quite wish that weren't the case - I would like for this to be a place where I don't have to worry about people I know "in real life" think of me - but what's done is done. I never tried particularly hard to conceal my identity, and so I know it could happen.

That said, I'm thinking it might be time to explain what this blog means to me, what I use it for. Things I can talk to my friends about in real life, I talk to them about. My blog is, generally though not exclusively, for the things I can't or don't want to talk to them about. I never expected such a high proportion of my posts to be about abortion, but, for better or for worse, they are. Why? Well, there are plenty of other things I feel strongly about, but I can express most of those strong feelings in the real world.

If I were to happen across a story about a mother killing her disabled daughter because she didn't want to take care of her or wanted to spare her the pain of her continued life, I would be horrified. I could express that horror. I could send the link to others, discuss it: "Did you hear this horrible story?" But when I come across an article, equally if not more horrifying, about the 90% abortion rate of children with Down Syndrome, I can't. Not without it turning into a debate about abortion, or the other person maintaining that a woman has a right to an abortion for any reason she can come up with, Down Syndrome included, or the opinion being floated that since they're not people anyway, it doesn't matter whether they're killed.

It's nice to be able to express opinions on those matters without having to defend myself for holding, without letting my grief for unborn children - which was what I'd wanted to express in the first place - be lost to the logistics of having the argument. That's not to say that I never make pro-life arguments here. Indeed I do. And I like having this blog as a place where I can make those arguments without being judged. That's why those are the arguments I make here more than any others; because this is the only place I can make them without being judged.

In addition, because I have tried, to some extent, to mask my identity, I don't post all that much about my life. I do some, but when I try to cut back on the personally identifiable information, it all gets kind of boring. The stuff I have been blogging about - which is often pro-life, for reasons identified above - is more interesting, which is another reason it figures so heavily.

Yeah, what ARE they for?

While I was reading comments on posts on my family genealogy blog:

Rhett, looking over my shoulder: Wow, do people really read your blog?
Me: Apparently a couple actually do.
Rhett: I mean, I know I read it--
Me: You do?
Rhett: Of course. What are boyfriends for, if not to read your genealogy blog?

(Compare to Suellen's attitude here.)

And don't forget to nominate and vote for your favorite "little" Catholic blogs at The Crescat!

Cannonball Catholic Blog Awards

No Quick Takes for my this Friday, since I've been too busy writing a last-minute research paper on the policies governing the treatment of human remains in museum collections (honestly, I can't get enough of this topic. 2 semesters in a row now I'm writing on similar topics). Be sure to check out 7 Quick Takes Friday at Conversion Diary, though!

Overload

It is generally ill-advised to ignore term papers until the week before they're due. When will I learn?

Posting will be light for the next week or two.

Blog Advice

The Internet Monk posted, a while ago (but I'm new at this), on Ten Reasons I Don't Read Your Blog. Since I'm a newcomer to the blogging scene, since I'm pretty sure no one "reads" my blog, per se, I've read them and I'll be doing my best to pay attention to them in the future.

1. It's too personal. Personal is good. Too personal and I don't care. I should know enough about your life to understand you. I shouldn't know what you are doing with your homeschooled kids every day or how your sheets gave you a rash. Know what "TMI" stands for and blog accordingly.

Uh oh. I think my first real post had elements that could be described as "TMI." It won't happen again, I promise. And I'm not sure most of the rest of my posts have much "personal is good" at all.

2. You have no sense of humor. You can't laugh at yourself.

I'm working on it. It might not be evident yet, but I'm working on it.

3. Your level of knowledge regarding the subjects you write about is so low that a discussion isn't moved forward by what you write.

I'm not even sure there even ARE "subjects I write about," much less that I know anything about them.

4. Your posts don't have links that lead me to new, interesting and helpful sites I've not yet discovered. I tell this to beginning bloggers all the time, but usually to no avail. Season your posts with helpful links.

I'd never thought of this as important, but sure, I'll give it a go. As soon as I come up with some helpful links.

7. Your blog wastes my time. After I come there, I've learned nothing, seen nothing, felt nothing and been moved toward nothing. It was just there. I want my five minutes back. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but is there anything real, human, truthful, beautiful or worthwhile there?

At this point, I doubt it. Uh oh.

9. You keep playing with your site and it's annoying. The fonts/colors/template change. The sidebars grow like some kind of lab culture. You've added every tie-in, java box and whirling dervish you can find, and then you redo the template.

Well, no. No, I don't. In fact, I'm not particularly satisfied with my template, etc., at the moment - especially the sidebars - but I'm a little afraid to. Blogs scare me.

I'll try better in the future.

Meta-blogging

In reading other blogs, the well-written, thoughtful, entertaining, interesting blogs that I aspire to be like, I find that people talk about controversial topics without worrying whether people will like them for their opinions, and that they reveal their personal feelings about intimate details of their lives. I'm not quite there yet.

I can barely even handle the basic parts of this so far - notice that most of my posts revolve around a picture or a 3/4 of a century old newspaper article. I started a blog because I had lots of thoughts in my head that I wanted to write down, and I wanted to do something more with them than just save them to my C drive when I was finished. I find myself with nothing to say more profound than "boy, this is hard."

The technical parts of it are even worse. Sitemeter? Adsense? Seems to be the thing to do on a blog, but what the heck do I actually DO? How does all this stuff work? Is there any point? HTML? Javascript? What does that even mean?

The actual soul-baring blogging that is so worth reading when it comes from others scares me when it (potentially) comes from me. Revealing my personal feelings about intimate parts of my life? That would entail telling other people my personal feelings about intimate parts of my life. What if someone I knew found this blog and found out my personal feelings about intimate parts of my life? And saying controversial things? I have plenty of thoughts on "sensitive issues" brewing in my head, but those are the ones that might make people dislike me. I'm brand new to all this. Currently, I'm disguising my general fear of rejection and being disliked behind a rational thought process that says "I have to give people an opportunity to like me before I give them ample chances to dislike me."

Maybe someday.