Considering Blogging

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William777

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Hello Brethren:

Just wanted to get some opinions here.

I started a religious blog a few weeks ago. I have wanted to be a Priest, and I felt it was a chance to practice writing “homilies.” And, it has been coming along relatively well. Although they aren’t really homilies because I am not really a Priest (at least not yet). They are more just personal reflections.

There’s a hitch though - it was originally intended to be kept private!

Well, actually, I’ve shown it to a few people. My spiritual director and a vocational director, and some close personal friends, but now - I must confess - I’d like to share it with more people.

But does that seem like too much? Or too flip-floppy, wish-washy? Or maybe it’s focus isn’t yet cut out to be a public blog? I don’t know. I wish I could have some greater conduit’s for spiritual growth, but I don’t know if blogging is the answer - although it might be a lot of fun and a good learning experience.

Any thoughts?

Blessings,

wm
 
Having some fun and learning something is exactly why I started my blog (see my signature). If you are called to one day be a priest, those homilies will be public so you might as well make your blog public and get some feedback. Besides, there’s nothing preventing you from creating a blog that has both public and private posts, but I think you’ll find that making them public is a lot more fun.

I’ve found blogging to be a terrific supplement to prayer because it forces me to really clarify my thoughts and beliefs about certain aspects of my faith. It’s one thing to say something is important to you. It’s another to try to explain why.
 
That sounds like me when I was starting mine. (not the priest part, but the desire for privacy) But I couldn’t figure it how to make it private. Anyway, it was more fun sharing, and gave me a little more incentive.

Four or so years later I have about 15 followers and about 4 faithful readers, so it’s not really about having a large crowd. I’ve made a couple of new blog-friends.

I say. - go for it!
 
This sounds like me as well. I started a blog a few days ago (see signature), but quickly felt moved to go ahead and make it public. The messages are personal thoughts, but I feel that if they can touch just one person and glorifies God then it is well worth.
 
Ask your spiritual director and vocation director. They will give you honest opinions based on your content.
 
Am thinking maybe I should open it up to a few people here on Catholic.com, so maybe I could get some additional opinions on what I am doing with it. I may need some help with the technology, too.

I am using WordPress, and, while the site is not public at all, somehow I just got some spam through it. The comments approval process caught and blocked it, but - what makes me more concerned is how the spam thing (probably a bot) figured out that the blog was there anyway!

I’m also trying to set up an RSS Feed from the USCCB on the daily readings, but I’m not very good with RSS technology yet.

If anyone would be interested/willing to take a look at what I have, and maybe make some suggestions, then feel free to send me a private message.

Thanks and many blessings,

wm

PS Ms Betsy - it’s nice to meet someone else from Baltimore on here. 🙂 I looked at some of the comments on your profile, and I know Fr DeAscanis also!
 
William777 said:
PS Ms Betsy - it’s nice to meet someone else from Baltimore on here. 🙂 I looked at some of the comments on your profile, and I know Fr DeAscanis also!
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Hi - nice to have you here. Thanks for saying hello.
 
I hope people see this question. It’s not my original intention in this post, so when I post secondary questions they seem to not always get answered for some reason.

Anyway, if I wanted some technical support (by technical support I mean just sharing developmental ideas and solutions) for my blog from a Catholic standpoint, then is there a place on Catholic.com to get the help? Tech support doesn’t exactly seem like an evangelization topic, but if one is using a blog (Iike WordPress or Drupal) to evangelize, then… well, it’s not completely unrelated either…

If there are any other interested geeks out there, then please let me know. You can post here or in private - although here might help like minds to network!

Blessings,

wm
 
William777 said:
I hope people see this question. It’s not my original intention in this post, so when I post secondary questions they seem to not always get answered for some reason.

Anyway, if I wanted some technical support (by technical support I mean just sharing developmental ideas and solutions) for my blog from a Catholic standpoint, then is there a place on Catholic.com to get the help? Tech support doesn’t exactly seem like an evangelization topic, but if one is using a blog (Iike WordPress or Drupal) to evangelize, then… well, it’s not completely unrelated either…

If there are any other interested geeks out there, then please let me know. You can post here or in private - although here might help like minds to network!

Blessings,

wm
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Good luck…I would LOVE to follow your blog creating as I have a blog named on word press and just can’t start. I have a feeling I will, just in God’s time, not my own 🙂
 
sanctus.marketproductions.com/

I know it is a horrible title (seemingly mixing business and religion), and I intend to change it when I have some time and pennies, but there’s actually nothing under that domain or any of its sub-domains as per business at all. It’s just an old domain I’ve had fr years, wasn’t using except for email, and salvaged for the sake of the blog.

Anyway, please be gentle with critiques of the blog. It was intended to be kept private, and only recently have I felt an interest in opening it up to the public. So it was originally intended to be used only by me, and so I designed it more as a journal.

The structure of the blog is defined by the navbar. It covers a lot of different stuff - perhaps too much - and I drew the structure more like an outline to a book. The outline is intended to be filled in over time, so there may be sections with nothing in them yet.

The Iconography section isn’t really icons at all. It is a set of galleries with about 1000 pictures of churches and religious places and events I have had the priviledge of attending over the years. There’s some beautiful pics in there, but there’s also some lousy ones. 1000 pics is a lot to edit, so I just posted them all.

Anyway, the main area I post to is Personal Reflections. Ironically, some of the better reflections were probably the initial reflections, as I seem to have diluted my focus over time. I cant figure out why this is so, but I imagine it is because I may be trying to do too much, or it may be an expansion of my mind. So the posts are all mixed up. To get to the Personal Reflections - you just go to the Navbar->Prayer->Personal Reflections.

I guess that’s about it. I’d be happy to help anyone learn how to setup and share a blog, so feel free to write as per technical discussion.

Peace and Blessings,

wm
 
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