FYI

What follows is part of an email response to my new friend over at Half-Baked Taters; I thought I should share it with all of you too:

I've enjoyed wandering through the Catholic blogosphere discovering other people's sites and opinions. When I first heard of blogs, it was heralded as a new form of independent, personal, quasi-journalism. Then my friends doing volunteer service abroad started creating blogs to inform people back home of the latest news, in order to decrease the amount of emails they'd have to respond to. Google made it so very easy to start one of my own, I couldn't resist.

But when I looked around Bloggerdom, I was disheartened at the angst and shallowness displayed. It seems that even with this 21st century technology connecting people from all over the world and allowing people a level of self-expression never before possible, there is still so much postmodernistic ennui.

I decided to do something different, but I soon discovered via St. Blog's Parish that my concept is highly unoriginal. I'm not put off by this, as it makes me feel like I've joined a tribe of similarly-minded people. The CIN blogring has been a boon as well. I discovered you, for one thing.

I think part of me was also reaching out into the WWW abyss, searching for an echo, and a hand to grasp. Some of my friends who use Live Journal don't quite get what I'm doing with CatholicLand. "It's not about YOU, it's about being Catholic."

I don't see the difference. I have been pleased to uncover a new appreciation for what it means to be "catholic". There are so many people out there, and we all have a common faith. As in all things, we find each other when we reach out into the Unknown. We find ourselves. God is good like that. He has blessed this new medium. I only hope to use it wisely and well.