Two Years Ago

Two years I started my first blog "Atheist to a Theist" at blogspot with this entry and a quote from G.K. Chesterton.

"It is a good sign in a nation when things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a nation when such things are one very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on."

Back in June of 2002 Tim Drake wrote an article on Catholic blogging that first let me know about St. Blogs. The article mentioned Mark Shea, Amy Welborn, Kathy Shaidle, Kathryn Lively, Pete Vere, Tom Kreitzberg and others. I only recognized Mark’s name and googled his site since the article had not hard links to sites. I soon started visiting the links on Marks blogroll and soon the people in the article and others became daily stops for me. As what has happened to many others commenting on other people sites leads you to the ego jump of starting your own blog.

My original intent was to comment on politics and the Catholic Church. As a recent convert I wanted to develop my new faith and expound upon life via my new Catholic eyes. I had never envisioned doing comedy via my blog. This just goes to show how little I knew myself. It took me all but two weeks to introduce comedy into a post with my Top ten list for you might be in a "spirit of Vatican II" parish if: Six months later I moved to Movable Type on my own domain with The Curt Jester. You can easily guess the Jester connotation and since my punditry is normally short and to the point I used Curt. But mainly because I liked the pun on Court Jester since one of my favorite movies is The Court Jester with Danny Kaye.

Blogging is much cheaper than a psychoanalyst and it is good to get pet-peeves off your chest. Plus I have found that it has forced me to think deeper on issues and to research what the Catholic Church has said on various subjects. I could easily had set the tone of my blog to be that of the Wanderer or the Remnant which I might of had a natural affinity to do. I complain about issues in the Church such as liturgy, but I try to do it with humor and charity (not always succeeding on either count). Steven Riddle had a defense of blogging of which I largely agree. Blogging is great for humility. I thought I knew a lot more about the Catholic faith then I really did when I started blogging. I have learned a lot more than I might have inadvertently taught. The other good thing for humility is that you might slave over a post that becomes almost like another child to you and it gets little or no attention. Then you put up something that you are not quite satisfied with and that one gets pointed to. I use to wonder how comic strip writers could come up with something funny to say everyday, and then I realized that they don’t always come up with something funny – some days are duds. Just like comedy blogging, some ideas are just duds.

The one annoying thing about writing daily is when you are not a writer. I am in no way a perfectionist, but I know how much lacking my prose is. I think might stuff reads like grammatical speed-bumps. I never intended to write, but then again I never intended to become a Catholic. So once again a entrance for humility when commenters tell you how you have grammatically butchered the English language. These comments have been useful since they have helped me to improve my writing a little bit.

St. Blogs is much like the communion of saints. We come to know and to pray for others that we have never met or seen. So again thanks to those who read my blog, and for bloggers who have blogrolled it or linked to my posts.

Other Blog Birthdays:

Steven Riddle of Flos Carmeli had his two year blogging anniversary on July 19th.

Bernhardt Varenius of Anti-Socialist Tendencies also celebrated his two year blog anniversary this week. And by the way Bernhardt I am still awaiting my " toenail clipper with a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe on it! Direct from a tacky little shop in Mexico City" prize for naming your site.

Also my fellow editor over at Catholic! Kerry Watch, Earl E. Appleby of Times Against Humanity also celebrates his one year blog anniversary today.