Here's a thought...

80M

If a blogger received just one dollar for every time he got a hit - just imagine how much money he would have after 80 million hits.

Reviewing the blog

Again!

I was going through the archives this morning - which takes so much time.  I began blogging in February of 2006.  I wrote a lot of unnecessary stuff, revealed too much about myself - and documented too many careless observations about others, as well as a whole lot of worthless chatter.   I need to figure out how to start at the beginning and delete the worthless material.  Some of my writing I want to keep, my children's stories and some of the memoir stuff - the rest can be trashed - how to do it though?  I have to get my life in order.  I keep saying that - but I really do need to start cleaning things up.

I came across an interesting post on Rod Dreher, the convert to Catholicism who left the Catholic Church for the Orthodox.  The most interesting part of the story - for me - is the summation by a New Advent writer on what went wrong:

Journalist Rod Dreher details his conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy here. I'm not going to dwell on this too much, but I want to make four points:

First, take it as a personal warning.

Rod candidly admits that his devotion to Christ was eclipsed by golden calves of his own making. These include:

• All-consuming anger -- "I became so tormented over what had happened to those children at the hands of the Catholic clergy and hierarchy that I could see nothing else but pursuing justice. And my own pursuit of justice allowed me to turn wrath into an idol. I didn't know I was doing this at the time. . . . That is something that could happen to anybody, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox or what have you. Be warned."
• Politicized faith -- "I can look back also and see that my own intellectual pride helped me build a weak foundation for my faith. When I converted to Catholicism in 1992 . . . it was a sincere Christian conversion. But I also took on as my own all the cultural and intellectual trappings of the American Catholic right."
• Churchcraft as a hobby -- "I had become the sort of Catholic who thought preoccupying himself with Church controversies and Church politics was the same thing as preoccupying himself with Christ. Me and my friends would go on for hours and hours about what was wrong with the Church, and everything we had to say was true. But if you keep on like that, it will have its effect."
• Clericalism -- "Without quite realizing what was happening, I became a Professional Catholic, and got so caught up in identifying with the various controversies in the American church that I began to substitute that for an authentic spirituality. This is nobody's fault but my own. Part of that involved hero-worshipping Pope John Paul II, and despite having a healthy awareness of the sins and failings of various bishops, exaggerating the virtues of bishops my side deemed 'orthodox.'"

Don't think you're personally immune from errors like these.  You're not, and I'm not.  (Read Matthew 24:22.)

I posted about it at the time - as if it was any of my business.  Since that time a few more bloggers have left the Catholic Church for another Church - or church.  Some have just walked away from religion entirely.  I don't read Dreher very often, but I think the same dynamics may be at work in what he writes today, as well as for many others online.

Of the four errors listed, I think "churchcraft as a hobby" or even "churchcraft as a job" is probably the most common fault - especially amongst lowly no-name bloggers.

I missed Tuesday...

OMIGOSH!  I was off line for 24 hours.

LOL!

Some people just post stuff because they have to keep stats up - hits and ads - that was a song from  Chorus Line, right?  Which explains why they just link to other posts or post banal messages ... thank you for responding to my Donate button.

So anyway.

I was coughing so hard at one point, I passed out - I fell back on my bed, so I did not get hurt, but I saw a white light and heard things.  Then when I came to, I wasn't sure where I was or what day it was.  This is a very bad flu.

I wasn't able to post.  Then I had to clean and do laundry. 

Oh.  Then I had to get my painting area all neaterized so I can start painting again, now that the house is clean and the yard work is just about finished.

I kept working however - pretending I was in a concentration camp - because those people did not have the luxury of calling in sick.

I want to make reparation for all my sins.  Like calling in sick.

I don't think I can however.

St Therese said "I wish to make reparation for my sins by casting them into the furnace of His merciful love."

I'm going to keep doing that.