Well, I am rather delighted to say that this is my 500th post in this 'ere blog. It is proof, were any needed, that this priest can not just concoct one or a dozen daft notions but many hundreds.
I think that I have been blogging for about 14 months now, and have found it to be a most satisfying way of spending a spare fifteen-odd minutes some days of the week. I have learned as much about me as you have, and I know that there are those of you out there that have read every jolly letter. That in itself is a humbling fact to absorb, and I thank all of you most sincerely.
So then - what of this blog. It is always a work in progress and this blogger a blogger in training. There are many hundreds of far better offerings than this, and I thank them too for teaching many lessons in what it is I try to do here. As I think back, I can count an incomplete Lent Course, an incomplete series of how to attract men into churches, far too many red-faced rants, a couple of experimental liturgies, some needless reactions to having had buttons pressed, many times when I have been wrong, a few when I was right, a change of name, some giggles, some good ideas (I think), and many many new acquaintances and friends. In other words, I'd do it all over again.
I still believe in the valency of blogging. I think that the world is starting to too, with people facing conviction for stuff that appears in micro-blogs, and other social media sites. I read a story of a woman fined millions because of defamatory remarks made on her own blog. This is real, the words are real, the sentiment is real, the effect intentional (mostly) and it exists through eternity. We blog carelessly at our peril, and sadly, many do.
I reach people in places I haven't even heard of, and by posts I would never have predicted. Most days, now, well over a thousand hits land here (and only 976 of them are me), and my top five posts of all time are:
Humuhumunukunukuapua'a
Oddly, none of these is overtly Christian, if even religious at all. It perhaps goes to show that if we God-botherers stop trying so hard, we might just get somewhere.
I am not sure how to end this post other than to say thank you to those of you read this, and to bear with me as I struggle to find time to write. Be assured I still want to, and this Vernacular Fool ain't going nowhere.
Congratulations both on the quantity and quality of your blogs David.
ReplyDelete500 is quite some achievement, though you have miscalculated the length of time you've been blogging.
It was reading your already well established and popular offerings which started me off on my first tentative post at the end of July 2010.
I suppose life has moved so fast for you recently that you've lost track of time.
So glad to know you don't intend to stop.
Blessings.
Congratulations on your half-millennium, David, and here's to the next. I learned such a lot about blogging from your blog when I first started, for which many thanks.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, you've been blogging for over 2 years now. Doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself? :-)
Well done, mate. I've read every single one and they were all worth the time, even if I disagreed once in a while (not often!)
ReplyDeleteMy favourite remains the drunk bloke at the cash machine. And the one about the Nativity Play two years ago that made me cry! Twinkle twinkle...
Keep right on!
Congratulations - that's a huge number in 2 years or so and well worth it - I think I've read most of your posts. Keep at it - you give joyful, humourous and thought-provoking stuff.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations.
ReplyDelete500 posts, what an achievement of quantity; with a sustained amount of quality, you're mighty impressive. We love to read so please keep blogging those thoughts. Congrats
ReplyDelete