{"id":12806,"date":"2012-07-23T19:39:53","date_gmt":"2012-07-23T23:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=12806"},"modified":"2012-07-23T19:39:53","modified_gmt":"2012-07-23T23:39:53","slug":"ten-years-after-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2012\/07\/ten-years-after-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Years After"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten years ago today I entered into the blogosphere with my first post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Warning ahead: Self-reflective ego post on ten years of blogging.<\/p>\n

I first became aware of Catholic blogging via the National Catholic Register which did an article on Catholic bloggers. I found Mark Shea’s blog that way and have been hooked ever since. In those early days of Catholic blogging you could read every Catholic blog over lunchtime. No RSS feeds back then so I would just click on all my bookmarks.<\/p>\n

It was interacting in the comment sections on Catholic blogs that first got me to think about starting my own blog. As I noted in my first post is was my vanity that wanted to bring my comments out of the comment section and into full view. Embarrassingly my first blog post contained the extremely pretentious “This blog is my comment section on life.” My blog was the first to reference Chesterton’s “if something\u2019s worth doing, it\u2019s worth doing badly.”, but it certainly was not the last to do so in an opening post. This quote is often taken out of context as Chesterton actually used in a defense of hobbies – which blogging certainly is for me.<\/p>\n

My first blog was on blogspot and was called “Atheist to A Theist.” After six months I moved to my own domain with Movable Type and started The Curt Jester. Of that handful of Catholic bloggers ten years ago some of them are still blogging. Mark Shea<\/a>, Amy Welborn<\/a>, Tom at Disputations<\/a>, Domenico Bettinelli<\/a>, TS at\u00a0Video meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor<\/a>. \u00a0 Victor Lams<\/a> was also one of those early pioneering Catholic bloggers and his creativity and humor really sparked me into blogging. \u00a0The first Catholic blogger though was\u00a0\u00a0Kathy Shaidle \u00a0of\u00a0Relapsed Catholic <\/em>which started in 2000.\u00a0I’ve also seen many blogs come and go and among those many that are sorely missed. \u00a0There have also been some interesting rises and falls. \u00a0One very popular \u00a0blog that went all wobbly \u00a0and then closed, ironically it was called “The Cafeteria is Closed”. \u00a0Another early Catholic blogger went back to being a Seven Day Adventist. \u00a0Though my favorite exit from St. Blogs was a former atheist who blogged on his new found faith and later became a Monk in an Eastern Catholic Church. \u00a0Nicely in the early days of St. Blogs there weren’t really any liberal Catholic blogs. \u00a0An article in Commonweal despaired of this lack and even took some potshots at me and other so-called conservative bloggers. \u00a0 Due to a suggestion from Kathy Shaidle I started a parody blog called Thoroughly Modern Mary<\/a> where I blogged as an extremely liberal religious sister to give Commonweal what they asked for \u00a0 Though that blog is several changes behind in Blogger templates and so now only has the text of my posts.<\/p>\n

So ten years and some 7,556 posts later I am still rather surprised to be still writing. Writing was never something I really aspired towards. \u00a0It was the joy of conversion and a way of expressing it that lead me in this direction. \u00a0In real life I am one of those quiet class clowns that will sit in the back of the room waiting for an opportunity for a quip while also being rather shy and bookish. So I don’t naturally find many opportunities to express my faith. I remember when my blog was getting five to ten hits a day how wondrous it was for me that five to ten people were paying attention to what I was saying. \u00a0That was a 500 to 1000 percent increase for me. \u00a0This blog has kind of taken of life of it’s own since it went down channels I never expected. \u00a0The funny thing is that I never originally intended a humor related blog – how little I knew myself. \u00a0My first humor post is still one of my fondest “A Night at the the Jesus Seminar<\/a>” a mashup between the Marx Brothers movie and a conversation with an adherent of the Jesus Seminar. \u00a0Another thing I never expected was becoming a book reviewer. \u00a0As my blog started to get popular enough I started to get offers from publishers to review their books. \u00a0The idea of getting books for free certainly appealed to me as way too much of my disposable income goes to them. \u00a0Having to write a review in exchange seemed like a pretty good deal, though I don’t find book reviewing particularly easy.<\/p>\n

What I like the most about St. Blogs though is how much I have continued to learn about the faith as there are so many quite excellent Catholic writers that range from the amateurs to the professionals. \u00a0There is so much expertise out there on so many topics that it can really help you from having a narrow view of the faith. \u00a0The long tail of St. Blogs creates a lot of great writing even if these bloggers will never get awards or are hardly noticed. \u00a0Not to diminish those more well-known Catholic writers who became bloggers, but one thing I always liked about the blogosphere is that you didn’t have to have a pre-built audience and that you could create one from scratch. \u00a0There is something very Catholic about the blogosphere in a very “here comes everybody” way. \u00a0There is a very small bar to do so and I remember another sadly missed Catholic blogger who blogged from the library computer. \u00a0The other thing I so like about St. Blogs is that you seem to have a personal connection to these writers. \u00a0Writers with a byline seem to be off in the distance, but members of St. Blogs I seem to have grown up with as they get married, have children, etc.<\/p>\n

Over these ten years I have also had some 50,000 comments. \u00a0Though I think 49,000 of them were from my atheist commenter Salvage.<\/p>\n

Now to close out this overly long post I leave you with a story of my naivet\u00e9.<\/p>\n

Before I started blogging I noticed that often Mark Shea would announce some new blog. \u00a0So after I started my blog I kept waiting for Mark to announce mine. \u00a0For some reason I must have thought he was omniblogospheric and notice every new Catholic blog that came on the scene. \u00a0I am not the self-promoter enough to realize these new bloggers simply wrote Mark announcing their blogs. \u00a0Though Mark Shea did ironically link to my Litany of Blog Humility<\/a><\/p>\n

The Litany of Blog Humility<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the desire of\u00a0my blog being read
\nDeliver me dear Jesus<\/em>
\nFrom the desire of my blog\u00a0being praised
\nDeliver me dear Jesus<\/em>
\nFrom the fear of my blog being\u00a0despised
\nDeliver me dear Jesus<\/em>
\nFrom the fear of my blog being\u00a0forgotten
\nDeliver me dear Jesus
\n<\/em>From the fear of no page\u00a0views
\nDeliver me dear Jesus<\/em>
\nThat other blogs may be loved more than\u00a0mine
\nJesus, grant me the grace to desire it
\n<\/em>That Nihil Obstat may\u00a0find all my grammatical and spelling errors
\nJesus, grant me the grace to\u00a0desire it
\n<\/em>That Google may never list my blog
\nJesus, grant me the\u00a0grace to desire it
\n<\/em>That comments always be negative\u00a0and\u00a0abusive
\nJesus, grant me the grace to desire it
\n<\/em>That my commenting\u00a0system always say “commenting temporarily unavailable”
\nJesus, grant me the\u00a0grace to desire it
\n<\/em>That Mark Shea may notice every blog but\u00a0mine
\nJesus, grant me the grace to desire it
\n<\/em>That others may be\u00a0pithier than I, provided that I may become as pithy as I should
\nJesus,\u00a0grant me the grace to desire it<\/em><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Nihil Obstat \u00a0was another early Catholic blogger who corrected the grammatical mistakes on Catholic blogs until his anonymity was accidentally compromised by\u00a0Barbara Nicolosi. There really needs to be a history of Catholic blogging full of these stories.<\/p>\n

* Ten Years After is a nod to the group by the same name. Alvin Lee named the group referencing ten years after Elvis, though I did write a post about the amazing coincidences between Elvis and Pope John XXIII<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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