Remembrance of Things Past

I launched this blog very nearly six years ago, on 8 February 2012.

That year was fated to be a very fateful and extraordinarily unpleasant one for me — including not merely my being suddenly purged from the Maxwell Institute but the unexpected death of my beloved half-brother, my only sibling — and I’m very glad that it’s over.  But such things were still ahead of me when I posted this first (blissfully ignorant) blog entry:

For years now, people have asked me whether I had a blog.  I’ve always answered No, but have felt that, really, I ought to.

So, finally, I’m taking the plunge.  I probably won’t be posting long entries here — I have plenty of outlets as it is, and am already behind on more writing commitments and goals than I can count — but I think it will be useful to post news, announce public presentations (people often ask where or whether I’ll be speaking over the next weeks and months), call attention to new articles and books, shamelessly advertise tours I’ll be leading, and the like.  I may even comment on politics — I’m really, really into political questions, and have been since I was an early teenager — though that may prove to be a bridge too far:  I’m controversial with plenty of people without picking any more fights.  (Which is, by the way, why I won’t be allowing comments here.  I have no interest in spending several hours a day sparring with anonymous internet critics, and I can guarantee that they would show up here in droves to take a shot at me.  But they have venues enough in which they can lament my wickedness and stupidity; I feel no obligation to supply them with yet another.)

Today, at the beginning of the new year of 2018, I cannot know what’s ahead.  I hope and pray for good health and joy and prosperity, not only for myself but for those (and those things) I love.  I’m optimistic.  There are promising developments on the horizon.  But I know that unpleasant surprises also lurk.  In any case, though, it’s a good time to look back just a bit.  How well, for instance, did I keep to my expressed purpose for the blog?

A few thoughts:

I’m going to continuing blogging.  I enjoy spouting off, for one thing, and I do think my blog a useful venue for calling attention to things that I want people to know about and for commenting on the passing scene.  I haven’t, though, found it an ideal venue for announcements.  I’ll probably be taking steps to create a better such venue in the near term.  And the blog has consumed too much of my time; I’m finding better ways lately, however, to make it serve my overall purposes rather than to distract and conflict with them, as it too often has.  For one thing, I’m trying to blog books that I’m working on, so that the blog furthers those projects rather than competing with them.

I’m now posting longer entries than I once did (and, accordingly, somewhat fewer entries), because Patheos asked me to do so.  And that’s also why, long ago, I decided to permit comments.  Comments drive traffic up, and Patheos likes higher traffic.  However, while I’m open to disagreement, I do try to ensure civility.  I have little patience for commenters who are uncivil, and absolutely none for those who post personal attacks on me and/or obscene insults.  I haven’t banned many commenters, but I have banned (and probably will ban) a few.

In any event, I want to wish those who read Sic et Non a very happy and prosperous 2018.

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Here are three thought-provoking articles recently published in the Deseret News:

“The Mormon restoration and the meaning of grace”

“The man behind the pen of ‘Letters to a Young Mormon'”

“Toward a Latter-day Saint sense of spiritual learning”

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I’m looking forward to reading this.  In my judgment, we haven’t yet begun to tap into the power of social and other new media for sharing the Restored Gospel:

“Book review: ‘The Virtual Missionary’ shares how to speak of Christ in the digital world”