What's Tony Thinking

A Modest Anniversary

It has now been one year since I, with help from Dennis Kenny and John Tonge at “Illuminage Communications,” converted my website to its current format as a blog.

In the course of that year I’ve posted 144 blogs — so I guess I must enjoy doing this. And, yes, I do! It’s a means of expressing myself, adding my bit to the conversation, perhaps providing some resource and encouragement to churches and clergy, and — I hope — to others as well. We scatter seeds.

Just this week, we hit 500 subscribers. A “subscriber” is someone who has signed up to “follow” my posts. Subscribers get a direct email in their in-box every time a new post goes up. If you’re not on that list but would like to be, it’s simple. There’s a “Follow” click-on at the bottom of each and every blog page. Click on it and sign up.

During the Kavanaugh hearings, several of my posts got a lot of readers, plus re-posting and sharing. That pushed numbers up for October to an all-time high, over 3,500 “visitors” that month, and more than 7,000 sessions.

After the fever broke, we came back to more usual numbers of about 1,800 unique visitors a month, and roughly 3,600 sessions. That means that visitors to the site checked in here twice a month on average. Some, of course, more and others less.

Since I get weary of on-line surveys seeking my “input” I won’t bother you with one here.

But I do welcome your thoughts/ feedback. Just click on the “Contact” button on the home page. I appreciate hearing from you whether you agree, disagree, have been touched by something I’ve written or ticked off by the same. I welcome your ideas for topics and feedback on format (length, frequency, photos etc.) As I told a reader who sent some kind words  just the other day, since I no longer have a congregation, you readers are a sort of congregation for me.

So a big “thank you” to you all.

I wrote my first “letter to the editor” at age 10. It was published in the Northern Virginia Sun newspaper. Believe it or not, that first letter to the editor was on a political topic. I chastised the Byrd political machine, which pretty much ran Virginia politics, for racism.

For most of the time since I’ve been writing and sounding off, writing for a literary magazine in high school, serving as columnist and editorial page editor of the college paper, writing regular columns for church newsletters, and contributing to various journals and magazines. Then for thirteen years a column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and, for a time, regular contributions to the Seattle-based, Crosscut, on-line news site.

I’m not entirely sure if you are enabling an addiction or supporting a very low-brow art form. But whichever it is, thanks.