{"id":76,"date":"2009-12-11T09:26:00","date_gmt":"2009-12-11T09:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html"},"modified":"2009-12-11T09:26:00","modified_gmt":"2009-12-11T09:26:00","slug":"the-year-in-blogging-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html","title":{"rendered":"The Year in Blogging, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>Who&#8217;s up for a year-in-review blog recap?<\/span> OK, put your hands down. I&#8217;ve gained a lot of new readers in recent months, so this might be a great opportunity for you to find some of the stuff you may have missed.<\/p>\n<p>Regular readers? Stay tuned until the end. It&#8217;s your chance to give your own opinion about any of your best-loved or not-liked-at-all posts.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">January<\/span><br \/>In January I <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/01\/resolutions-for-2009.html\">shared my goals<\/a> for the year and revealed <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/01\/my-because-i-can-philosophy.html\">why I tend to do a lot of fitness-related stuff<\/a>. I was briefly interested in the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/01\/fake-jasons-fake-novel.html\">fake novel<\/a> being written by <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/fakejasonboyett\">Fake Jason Boyett on Twitter<\/a> (who was actually me and not some interloper, and who hasn&#8217;t tweeted in months). I admitted the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/01\/13-possibly-surprising-things-i-have.html\">surprising things I have NOT done<\/a>. I live-tweeted <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/01\/tweeting-inauguration.html\">President Obama&#8217;s inauguration<\/a> and riffed on his &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/01\/abundance-of-caution.html\">abundance of caution<\/a>&#8221; misfire.<\/p>\n<p>And I gave <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/01\/books-i-have-written-plus-commentary.html\">an overview of the books I have written<\/a> (prior to the new Pocket Guides). If you are new to this site or my writing, follow that link. It&#8217;s a good introduction.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">February<\/span><br \/>I complained about <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/02\/christians-and-service-industry.html\">Christians and the service industry<\/a>, a post that got a fair number of agreeable comments. I gave in to the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/02\/giving-in-to-25-things-facebook-meme.html\">&#8220;25 Things About Me&#8221;<\/a> Facebook meme, only I didn&#8217;t do it on Facebook. I did it here. I discussed <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/02\/pigs-prosecutors-and-killing-my-babies.html\">killing my babies<\/a> as a writer. Then I got on a Jonathan Edwards kick, and this &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/02\/jonathan-edwards-or-death-metal.html\">Jonathan Edwards or Death Metal<\/a>&#8221; quiz was one of my favorite posts of the year (<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/02\/answers-jonathan-edwards-or-death-metal.html\">Here are the answers<\/a>). I waxed ineloquently about <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/02\/i-find-your-lack-of-pants-disturbing.html\">changing classic Star Wars quotes by inserting the word <span style=\"font-style: italic\">pants<\/span><\/a>, as in &#8220;These aren&#8217;t the pants you&#8217;re looking for,&#8221; then I took the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/02\/jonathan-edwards-and-fiery-pants-of.html\">same approach with lines from a classic Jonathan Edwards sermon<\/a>. I re-posted about how a Baptist (me) <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/02\/ash-wednesday-and-lent.html\">began observing Lent<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">March<\/span><br \/>I made the jump to<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/03\/changes-and-secret-truths.html\"> full-time self-employment<\/a> in March, which was a major leap for me in terms of my career. We celebrated <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/03\/its-square-root-day-happy-nerd-holiday.html\">Square Root Day<\/a>, a nerd holiday. I pointed to an awesome video about <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/03\/heaven-breakfast-free-zone.html\">the lack of quality breakfast foods in Heaven<\/a>. I then pointed to my own video of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/03\/speaking-about-spiritual-weakness.html\">me speaking about spiritual weakness<\/a>, using an illustration that made its way into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0310289491?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jasoboye-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0310289491\"><span style=\"font-style: italic\">O Me of Little Faith<\/span><\/a>. I confessed that, yes, I had just <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/03\/confessions-i-read-and-enjoyed-twilight.html\">finished reading the entire <span style=\"font-style: italic\">Twilight<\/span> series<\/a> and, yes, I had enjoyed it. So there.<\/p>\n<p>Then, on March 25, I posted about a Jesus painting that both mesmerized and confounded me: <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/03\/please-explain-this-christian-art.html\">Please Explain This Christian Art<\/a>. It led to charges of snobbery against me (guilty) and a great discussion about the purpose and practice of art. <span style=\"font-style: italic\">I am still getting comments today<\/span> about this post&#8230;including one a couple months ago by the artist himself (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.art4god.com\/\">Steven Sawyer<\/a>). While I know some people have a problem with me questioning the &#8220;heart&#8221; or intent of a spiritually minded artist, I still think it&#8217;s a goofy, clumsy painting. But perhaps I&#8217;m the wrong beholder of its beauty. Let&#8217;s agree to disagree, people.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">April<\/span><br \/>I asked &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/04\/how-important-is-your-little-toe.html\">How important is your little toe?<\/a>&#8221; What, if anything, would be worth its voluntary amputation? Got some interesting responses. I returned to Jonathan Edwards, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/04\/mashup-family-circus-jonathan-edwards.html\">mashing him up with the gentle humor of Family Circus<\/a>. I explained <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/04\/writers-mailbag-endorsements.html\">book endorsements<\/a> and interviewed Rabbi Josh about <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/04\/ask-rabbi-birkat-ha-chamah.html\">Birkat Ha-Chamah<\/a>. I asked for ideas about <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/04\/ideas-needed-what-could-you-do-with.html\">a church that might have $20,000 extra a month<\/a> to spend on its community. We asked God our <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/04\/dear-god-i-have-question.html\">big questions<\/a> and I made <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/04\/ten-more-confessions.html\">10 confessions<\/a>. Then we had a great caption contest about an <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/04\/caption-contest-inspirational-kitten.html\">inspirational kitten<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">May<\/span><br \/>I told a <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/04\/story-of-ehud-for-kids.html\">children&#8217;s version of the Old Testament story of Ehud<\/a>. It was not pretty. In the midst of the original swine flu frenzy, I presented <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/05\/10-stats-more-important-than-swine-flu.html\">10 Stats More Important than Swine Flu<\/a>. I pontificated about the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/05\/tyler-frost-carrie-prejean-and-newsy.html\">glorification of Carrie Prejean<\/a> and other bad Christian ideas. I introduced the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/05\/five-sentence-scary-story-contest.html\">Five-Sentence Scary Story Contest<\/a>, one of my favorite contests to date. I quoted <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/05\/obama-on-faith-and-doubt.html\">President Obama on faith and doubt<\/a>, then went to LA <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/05\/oddities-of-expert-dom.html\">to be interviewed about the apocalypse<\/a> for a <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/05\/q-that-la-trip.html\">Mad Max DVD documentary extra<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">June<\/span><br \/>I revealed <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/06\/why-i-love-june.html\">my love for June<\/a> (the month, as opposed to any human Junes). I got <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/06\/publishers-weekly-review.html\">reviewed in Publisher&#8217;s Weekly<\/a>. I posted a scary Jehovah&#8217;s Witness cartoon of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/06\/jesus-christ-destroyer-of-worlds.html\">Jesus destroying the world<\/a>. I cannarf-reviewed <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/06\n\/review-jesus-interrupted.html\"><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Jesus, Interrupted<\/span> by Bart Ehrman<\/a>. I discovered that a photo of married <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/06\/worst-christian-single-model-ever.html\">American Idol winner Kris Allen<\/a> was appearing in an ad for Christian singles on my site. I posted about a hilarious cosmetic line called <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/06\/lookin-good-for-jesus.html\">Lookin&#8217; Good for Jesus<\/a>. I repurposed a Slate contest and invited you to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/06\/name-your-own-toy-based-summer-movie.html\">name your own toy-based summer movie<\/a>. Then I <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.jasonboyett.com\/2009\/06\/interview-with-writer-me.html\">interviewed myself<\/a> for my own blog. Wasn&#8217;t the first time I&#8217;d done that&#8230;and it won&#8217;t be the last.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Your turn: <\/span><span style=\"font-style: italic\">What was your favorite post of January-June 2009? Which post do I need to explain, apologize for, or completely retract?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned next week for a blog recap of the rest of 2009.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who&#8217;s up for a year-in-review blog recap? OK, put your hands down. I&#8217;ve gained a lot of new readers in recent months, so this might be a great opportunity for you to find some of the stuff you may have missed. Regular readers? Stay tuned until the end. It&#8217;s your chance to give your own&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-lists"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Year in Blogging, Part 1 - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Year in Blogging, Part 1 - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Who&#8217;s up for a year-in-review blog recap? OK, put your hands down. I&#8217;ve gained a lot of new readers in recent months, so this might be a great opportunity for you to find some of the stuff you may have missed. Regular readers? Stay tuned until the end. It&#8217;s your chance to give your own&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-12-11T09:26:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jason Boyett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Year in Blogging, Part 1 - O Me of Little Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Year in Blogging, Part 1 - O Me of Little Faith","og_description":"Who&#8217;s up for a year-in-review blog recap? OK, put your hands down. I&#8217;ve gained a lot of new readers in recent months, so this might be a great opportunity for you to find some of the stuff you may have missed. Regular readers? Stay tuned until the end. It&#8217;s your chance to give your own&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html","og_site_name":"O Me of Little Faith","article_published_time":"2009-12-11T09:26:00+00:00","author":"Jason Boyett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html","name":"The Year in Blogging, Part 1 - O Me of Little Faith","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-12-11T09:26:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-12-11T09:26:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2009\/12\/the-year-in-blogging-part-1.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Year in Blogging, Part 1"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/","name":"O Me of Little Faith","description":"A blog by Jason Boyett about Doubt, Christianity, Culture &amp; Writing","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/f69eb4f788db541ff47d2f5d01cad5e7","name":"Jason Boyett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/a5a\/a5a647d97bed4014325bf9a1fb0b6900x96.jpg","caption":"Jason Boyett"},"description":"Jason Boyett is a writer, speaker, and the author of several books, including O Me of Little Faith (Zondervan), and the Pocket Guide series (Jossey-Bass). His work has appeared in Salon, Paste, The Daily Beast, Relevant, and a variety of other publications. He has also appeared on the History Channel and National Geographic Channel. Jason lives in Texas with his wife and two kids. Follow him at twitter and jasonboyett.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/author\/jboyett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}