My continuing reflections on refocussing and restructuring this site have reminded me of two things I have come to neglect over recent months.

The first is that I began my journey by regularly reading a handful of experienced bloggers who were immensely helpful to me (I think especially of Michael Bayly at The Wild Reed, Bill Lindsey at Bilgrimage, and Colkoch at Enlightened Catholicism), as well as more manstream news and commentary sites such as National Catholic Reporter, America Blog, and dot.Commonweal. I began, in effect, simply by placing comments to what others were writing. Later, I added to my reading newer sites, and those that were not specifically Catholic. As I developed as a blogger, much of my early content came from shout outs to the best that I was seeing from my early mentors. However, as my own site developed, I became far too self-obsessed, spending too little time reading and contributing to others. This was selfish - and not helpful.

The second I have noted before. My original intention was to develop a comprehensive resource for LGBT Catholics (later expanded to include other Christians), and not a simple personal soapbox, but I have been putting too much energy into reacting to news, and too little into the more enduring resource material. I have begun to correct that, by resisting the temptation to comment on every news story, by recognizing that while it is useful to publicize the news, not everything needs commentary. I now place simple news stories as introductory paragraphs and links at an independent, associated site (Queer Church News), with an RSS feed in my my left hand side bar on this site. Personal commentary I now reserve for the most important stories, or (better), on groups of stories with a common them. Thus far, I think that approach is working well - so well, that I now hope to expand the principle to include not just news, but also a selection of commentary posts from the queer faith bloggers I admire, my original mentors and others.

Building a comprehensive resource base is more complex, but I’ve made a start. The problem with the blogging medium, is that it is designed to foreground the latest posts, so that older material, however valuable, simply recedes into the archives. To counter this, I have always envisaged the set of back pages (see the tabs across the top of the page) as a way to house and foreground a way to access permanent resource material. This has never worked particularly well, but I remain convinced that the principle, of using the page structure for permanent, enduring content and resources (including links to the better and more important blog posts) is the correct principle to follow. How best to implement it, is a technical issue that will require comprehensive redesign. That will take time.

Meanwhile, within the limits of the current design, I have been spending more time on developing and upgrading these resource pages, in accordance with my original intention. “Comprehensive Resource” means much, much more than simply what I have posted myself, but must include what others have contributed, especially in the areas where I am weak. Previously, on my Calendar of Queer Saints & Martyrs page, I have included links to not only my own posts on these, but also to others (especially to Kittredge Cherry’s series on LGBT saints at Jesus in Love). I am now adapting a similar approach to LGBT affirmative Bible readings, drawing heavily on David Popham’s work at The Bible in Drag, and Jeremiah Bartram’s series of Sunday Gospel Reflections a few years ago at Gospel for Gays. As this grows and expands, I will add to it a parallel series on links to the best of commentary from around the net on dealing with the clobber texts. (More on this, and how I see it developing, here).

The principle can be extended to the other dimensions of queer faith that need to be addressed, and currently sit as not very convincing resource pages - queer spirituality, gay and lesbian theology, the experience and witness of LGBT people, sexual ethics, engaging with the Catholic Church, understanding sexuality, human and animal - and more. All will benefit by proper attention to the best that others have done, and not only my own groping in areas where I have no special expertise.

So - while it may appear that thee’s not been a great deal of new material appearing on the main site over the past week, behind the scenes I have in fact been busy: posting news items, developing my Affirmative Scripture page/s - and engaging in more reading myself, all with a view to share more of what I have gained from others. Bear with me - I am convinced that the site will be better for it.