It’s Our Birthday AND It’s Giving Tuesday!

“How time flies when you’re producing a blog on Catholic LGBT news, opinion, and spirituality!”

Wait a minute.

Somehow that doesn’t sound as spiffy as “How time flies when you’re having fun!”

It doesn’t matter.  They mean the same thing.

When people ask me about the work involved in putting together Bondings 2.0, I always have the same answer:

“It’s fun!”

And in the midst of that fun, six years have gone by since November 28, 2011, when I started this blog.  If you want to see how far this blog has come, click here to look at that original blog post.  You’ll see that I had no idea what I was doing!

Six years later, I like to think I have a somewhat better idea of what the blog should be.  Along with Robert Shine, who has worked tirelessly on the blog for the past five years, and Lizzie Sextro, our newest regular contributor, and all the wonderful guest bloggers whose thoughts have graced this cyber-page, I think we try our best to bring you the most current and up-to-date news, opinion, and spiritual reflections affecting Catholic LGBT people and their allies.   Our purpose is the same as New Ways Ministry’s purpose has always been:  to educate people so that they can be empowered to make informed decisions and actions for justice in the faith communities.

But, what makes producing the blog so much fun is that it is more than that, too.  And the “more” is you, our readers.  As we prepare posts, we’re always thinking, “What will the readers think of this one?”  Honestly, we are not the greatest prognosticators.  Posts that we think will be a big hit usually get smaller numbers of views.   Posts that we are not too happy with at the end of writing and editing often turn out to send our viewing stats skyrocketing.

Regardless of views, what we appreciate most are your comments.  I never realized that a blog would actually become a conversation, and we so greatly appreciate hearing your views about the news stories and essays that we post and comment on.   Keep ’em coming!

Today is Giving Tuesday, a day set aside in the pre-Christmas season to highlight end-of-the-year donations to non-profit organizations.  If you enjoy reading Bondings 2.0, and if you think it is providing a service to you, we would be honored if you would consider us in any donations that you make today and throughout the Christmas shopping season. Bondings 2.0 is a free resource, but we rely on our donors to keep it going.  Any gift, large or small, helps to keep this blog site active and vibrant.  Please help us celebrate our birthday with a gift that fits your means.  We request donations only twice a year: on our birthday, and six months later on our half-birthday.

You can donate online by clicking here.  Or you can mail a check made out to New Ways Ministry to our office at 4012 29th Street, Mount Rainier, Maryland 20712  USA.  If you want to donate by credit card over the phone, please call 301-277-5674, between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

You can support the blog in another big way, too:  Please tell your friends about it and encourage them to subscribe to it.  Building our blog community would be a great boost to all of us, readers and bloggers alike.

Our birthday is also a time when we like to encourage our readers to comment on our posts.  If anything you read here strikes a chord, or a nerve, or inspires you to share a thought, an experience, a dream,  please consider sharing those ideas with others through the “Comment” feature for each post.  Here are our guidelines for making comments:

  1. Please keep your comments relevant to the content of the post.
  2. Please refrain from name-calling or other personal attacks.  Challenge the person’s ideas and arguments instead of insulting the person.
  3. Please use only civil language; no profanities.
  4. We will not approve any comments that we deem to be pastorally or personally harmful to our readers.

We are looking forward to another exciting year–and, we hope, many more years to come!  A birthday is a time to look back at where we have been and to build hopes for the future.  We would love to hear some of your hopes for the blog.  You can share them in the “Comments” section of this post, or email us at [email protected].

A birthday is also a time to give thanks for all who have helped achieve this milestone.  For our blog, that’s YOU!  So many thanks for all your involvement in making this project not only informative, but also a whole lot of fun for our staff!

Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, November 28, 2017

1 reply
  1. Colm Holmes
    Colm Holmes says:

    Happy Birthday from We Are Church in Ireland!
    We were delighted when a large group from New Ways Ministry visited Ireland in 2015 – the year Ireland voted by national referendum in favour of marriage equality!
    We include Bondings 2.0 on our Facebook Page and your posts are greatly appreciated!
    Keep up your good work!

    Reply

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