Catholic Ragemonkey

With this wine and with this music,/ how can anything be clear?/ Just wait and see,/ next year may be, the perfect year...
Joe Gillis to Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard (musical)

Fr. Hamilton marked the last day of a Year of Ragemonkey; it's my task to mark the first day of a whole new Year. When I think on how this blog began, it's really quite funny. I didn't want to start it. It was the badgering of Techmonkey Dave that put the idea in my head. It didn't hurt matters that I have multiple opinions and many ways to express said opinions. In other words, I am loud mouth that needed another venue to bark from, or should that be screech from. When the blog was only a few days old, I decided that a stategic inclusion was needed; if I hadn't, my comments boxes would be full of his comments. So, under the rubric of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer" I drafted Fr. Hamilton into the troop and I never regretted the decision. (Okay, okay, I occasionally regret it but not for long.) Only recently we added (and here it is the royal "we", meaning me) brought a third into the circle. That gives us our third monkey, Fr. J.C. Garrett, our official east coast corespondant.

This history lesson is for those who were not here in the heady days when the blog began and a readership was formed. Over the last 12 months, there have been squabbles, minor and major. There have been people who read and left, and those who read and stayed. We have strived to cover everything, from the sublime to the ridiculous, with some success I might add. The most rewarding aspect of this work though has been knowing the role that we have played in the Faith formation and Faith support (nay, dare I say, fellowship) of literally thousands of people, about 115,000 at most recent count. Most recently, I received an email from the editor of the diocesan newspaper in Perth, Austrailia concerning an article one of his minions wrote. Without leaving little Alva, nestled against the Kansas border, or a border town in the panhandle of Oklahoma, or the confines of Mercer County, NJ, we have played some small part in the lives of others. For those who have stayed with us, through thick, and my eventual thin, I thank you and you are remembered in my prayers today. Let me also thank our technical staff, Dave and Steph, for their dedication and assistance of the work done. They share in all of the credit for our success; all of the failures are purely on the part of the authors.

As for the future, look for some blog format changes, but these will be done without consulting Fr. Hamilton. Also, expect some new outlets and venues for the CRM team. I wish I had a schmaltz line to go out on, but I don't. So, just keep on doing what you have been doing. Stay tuned.