1. David noted in a previous post that he was having difficulty typing. Is it time for someone to step up to share admin duties?
2. We have a new poster, Biaggio. Anyone know who this is? My preference is to keep the group to people one of us knows and has invited to participate. Lots of trolls out there I'd prefer not to deal with.
3. Anne has had trouble generating posts from her phone. Has this been fixed?
Anything else?
Biagho showed up at least once before. I also prefer keeping it to our small group.Biaghos comments - the two I saw- were a single, ambiguous sentence. Guessing he or she might be a troll. ,
ReplyDeleteDavid fixed it so that I can sign in again.
ReplyDeleteAt the least, newcomers should not be given the right to post new threads. But if they turn out to be trolls they should also be blocked from comments. Or preemptively blocked?
ReplyDeleteI would be okay with someone joining the group who was interested in the things we discussed, and told us a little about themselves. And wasn't just a random kibbutzer out of nowhere.
DeleteDavid, one of my closest friends had a form of Lou Gehrig disease called Man in a Barrel syndrome. After she couldn’t type anymore she used Siri for email and text. Would that work for you?
ReplyDeleteCan there be more than one administrator? If that is possible, we should have an additional administrator. As long as we don't then we are limited if David becomes incapacitated, e.g. only he can issue contributor status or block someone from commenting.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that if David becomes incapacitated the blog would continue as long as one or more of us continues to post, i.e. that Blogger only shuts down a blog if there is no activity for two years.
I nominate Jim as second administrator since I think he is the youngest.
Our bishop is encouraging praying fifteen minutes a day and joining a small faith sharing group. He has made it clear that people need to decide for themselves what form of prayer is best, and to start their own groups as needed. He is also encouraging internet means of doing things. He addressed his letter to each individual person in the diocese, so we don't have to wait to see what the parishes are going to do.
I am encouraging the thirty some people on the Cleveland Commonweal Local Community list to consider establishing CLCs as faith sharing groups in the homes, their parishes, their communities (e.g. libraries) rather than or in additional to having a central meeting with its travel burden for most people.
I am encouraging them to recruit friends who are not Commonweal subscribers. They don't need to become subscribers because of the five free articles a month.
I am also encouraging them to start one or more hybrid communities (virtual as well as physical discussions). So, I am going to give them links to NewGathering so they can see how we function and decide if that is what they want.
I will encourage them not to comment on NewGathering unless they introduce themselves and/or have me introduce them. For example, one member is a certified Ignatian Spiritual Director. I am going to encouraged her to develop her own website to encourage a variety of ways of praying and a variety of spiritual support groups. If she likes our blog I think she would make a great addition to a group and it would give her some practical hands-on experience of being a member of a virtual group on a daily basis.
We do need face the reality that we are slowing diminishing in numbers, so it would be good if we recruited something like a new person or two per year to keep us viable. I may be able to do that with carefully selected people from our CLC. We will probably have to discuss more Commonweal articles tha usual. I am glad that some of you have already renewed your subscriptions. Those who don't have one might want to hold your five free links to the end of the month. I may be posting about that number in the future.
In a day or two I will be posting a lot more about where our diocese is heading. I suspect Jim will be very interested. There may be some people (deacons, lay ministers etc.) who might want to follow what is going on in Cleveland by means of this blog. That might mean more commentors some of whom, like my friend, might become contributors.
My sense is that growing our virtual community slowly each year by 1-3 members might provide us with virtual national community that will outlast most of us. That would be a good lesson for the Commonweal Editors!
Jim may be the youngest member, but he is also the only one of us trying to work full time as well as to perform his deacon duties.
DeleteI think it's fine to invite new people and to redirect the group so that it hews more closely to its Commonweal roots. It's what got everyone together in the first place.
However, I no longer subscribe to Commonweal, and I am not much interested in organized religion or exclusively Catholic spiritual practices any longer.
I have been spending more time with my cancer group and some local endeavors. So maybe this is a good time for me to rethink my participation here.
Jean, obviously remaining with the group as a participant is your decision. But I would like to say that we would really miss you. Adding a couple of regulars would be fine. I like the idea of a trained spiritual director. Shalem trains spiritual directors of multiple denominations, and even non- Christians. Spirituality has long been more important to me than religion, so for me the discussions can be rooted in Catholicism or in other religious or spiritual contexts. I have always been interested in what other religions have to teach us. I know that you and I and David are all influenced by our Catholic backgrounds, even though we aren’t traditional Catholics . David is an atheist I believe but, like me, his religious and spiritual life was “ formed” in Catholicism. Your background is very different and more eclectic and your experiences and insights ( religious and non- religious) are very valuable as a result.
DeleteI am very aware that everybody else here is a cradle Catholic and that my foray into Catholicism started after age 40 and fizzled pretty quickly. I get helpful insights from the Catholic perspectives that people here have. I enjoy sharing my adventures in hagiography sometimes. But if others feel our numbers here at NewGathering need to be increased by adding more practicing Catholics, I would no longer feel comfortable.
DeleteI am especially not interested in a spiritual director coming on to observe and practice on us. I don't want to be a guinea pig.
I don’t want a spiritual director for the group. No way, Jose, as my kids used to say. I just thought a person with that background might have some interesting insights. I mentioned that Shalem trains spiritual directors from different backgrounds, including Jewish. Spirituality is different than plain religion. It has little to do with theology or catechisms, or canon laws. It’s about relationship with God. And, like God, is not confined to one religion. At our EC parish one of the most active members was a devout cradle Episcopalian who had an RC nun as his spiritual director. I met aJewish spiritual director at a Shalem event. Since Shalem was founded by an EC priest quite a few of the spiritual directors were Episcopalians of course. Also a Catholic nun. A Methodist woman and others.
DeleteI feel no need to add members. But if others do, and they are somehow vetted, I wouldn’t object. But no more than two. CP groups work best with 6-8 active members. We have that now.
As I understand my awesome powers, I can give administrator status to one other member/author or, for that matter, to all. I have thought of that before.
DeleteI really like the diversity we have here. I would be thrilled to welcome new members, but not at the expense of abandoning that diversity. In other words, "If this turns into a nuns' bar, I'm outta here."
My CP groups were also not all Catholics, much less cradle Catholics, even the CP group that met at my former Catholic parish. We had a Baptist. An evangelical, an Episcopalian in the RC parish group. After a couple of people moved away, We then joined a group at at an EC parish. Still never more than 8-9 .The other CP groups in the DC area met at Catholic, Episcopal and. Methodist parishes.
DeleteI am actually fine with our group remaining "as is", I think it is a good number.
DeleteEven though I am a cradle Catholic, I only had one Catholic grandparent, and my husband is a convert. We had Lutherans, Baptists, and various forms of evangelical Christians in our extended family. So I guess we were kind of a DEI bunch.
I honestly don't want to draw lines in the sand for anybody else. As far as I can see, we started this group because we wanted to keep going after Commonweal kicked us off the bus. I feel no mission or larger reason for keeping things going other than enjoying the companionship on the road until the big EXIT sign comes into view.
DeleteSince I also became a member of the Commonweal Local Community, I don't have any negative feelings toward them. I think replacing about 50 contributors plus commentors with about 50 groups was a gain, probably serving 500 or more people.
DeleteHowever, I think that they should have promoted hybrid communities, i.e. each CLC having a virtual group. That would have been about 300-400 people if each CLC had a group our size.
I think the old blog as well as this one tended to be supportive communities, although the old blog, if I remember correctly had a few people who were difficult to handle. If I remember correctly, Peggy said each contributor had the ability to delete comments to control the unruly.
To be honest, I don’t feel like this group is a group. After conversing about so many different things for so many years now I personally feel like you are friends, even though we’ve never met in person.
DeleteI feel the same way, Anne.
DeleteJean “ feel no mission or larger reason for keeping things going other than enjoying the companionship on the road until the big EXIT sign comes into view.”
DeleteThat’s the main thing for me - the companionship, especially since my hearing loss has isolated me from so much.
I also consider this a group of friends, people about whom I care and whose company I enjoy. I may not always agree on political and religious matters but I always sympathize. I think we all agree about the gravity and strangeness of the present situation. This blog is kind of a lifeboat in a stormy sea.
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ReplyDeleteSpeaking only for myself, I don't care for Jack giving the link for NewGathering to others. I realize this is not a private site and anybody can stumble on it. But knowing others will be given our address specifically to monitor us makes me feel a bit weird.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same re: group of friends.
ReplyDeleteWas everyone here part of Jim McCrea's email group? Why don't we invite Leo and some of those folks?
I am not too sentimental about virtual groups. These are not the folks who are going to bring you a hot dish, listen to your worries about the latest lab test results, or tell you honestly whether you look better in navy blue or teal.
DeleteBut they do provide info, insights and a place to challenge your world view. At least that's what I get out of this and a couple other groups I participate in.
The benefit of new people is that you can get some fresh perspectives on things. The drawback with new people is that they can change the focus and tenor of the group.
What I like about this group is that people usually don't upload more than one new topic per day. I had Jim M take me off his email list because I was getting too many emails per day and the topics changed so fast that I couldn't keep track of them.