Howdy, Neighbors!

Hi. I’m Joanne. Come on in. Pull up a packing crate, help yourself to the cheese and crackers, and I hope you don’t mind that the wine’s in coffee mugs, because I don’t quite remember which box the glasses are in. I’m still unpacking and hanging the new wallpaper, so please excuse the mess and make yourself comfortable.

This is my first post from my new digs in the Patheos Catholic Channel neighborhood, and like anyone on moving day I’m excited and scared. I’m delighted to have made some friends on this block already over the last year—in fact, they’re the ones who convinced me to move—and I look forward to making lots of new ones, both among the residents who blog and the visitors who drop by the combox, some of them from my old hood. I’m a little scared because it’s such a big and busy neighborhood, so I trust you’ll bear with me. Let me know where the blog-nabe equivalents of the good bookstores and coffee shops and corner bars and farmers’ markets are to be found. Sign me up to work the blackjack table at the parish fish fry.

Yes, the blog name is a little odd. It’s a family joke of sorts. It means “particularly outlandish nonsense.” I hope you’ll find, though, that it’s the opposite of what I want to have on offer here, with the Spirit’s help. The long story about the blog name and that header image of the dove of the Holy Spirit is on the About Joanne page, if you’re interested.

Me? I’m a revert, trying to shed all other labels than Catholic. I don’t always manage that well, so you can say I have a stubborn case of revertigo. Everyone is welcome here, but the door is open especially wide to folks whose dance with faith sometimes looks more like stumbling, and doesn’t tend to follow any established choreography. There’s more about me and my journey on the About Joanne page, too.

I won’t talk your ear off today (oh, OK, I already have—I do get windy), but I just want to say again how happy I am to be here, and how terrific all the folks at Patheos have been in arranging the move and helping me get set up. For now, let’s pray:

Lord, be close to your servant who moves into this home today and asks for your blessing. Be her shelter when she is at home, her companion when she is away, and her welcome guest when she returns. And at last receive her into the dwelling place you have prepared for her in your Father’s house, where you live for ever and ever. Amen.

Prayer Source: Book of Blessings by Prepared by International Commission on English in the LiturgyA Joint Commission of Catholic Bishops’ Conferences, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1989