Update: Since my new blog is in dire need of some Google recognition, and I don’t have teeming masses linking to me, I should make sure this link is visible above the fold: Sacred Space
It has now been a month since my Religious Left blog simply poof disappeared from the internet. Actually, it’s worse than that– ALL of the blogs I had on Blogspot are gone. Logged in one day to add a link to the blog I put up for my psychology students, and what greeted me on the dashboard in my Blogger account was simply the “create a new blog” option. So, my psych blog–gone forever. Have to start from scratch. Drat! I later remembered that the blog where people had left so many wonderful birthday messages for Demetrius last year was also gone forever. Double drat!
I guess the lesson I learned the hard way here is that it is important to have back-ups of everything offline. Thing is, before the Religious Left blog disappeared from cyberspace, The Village Gate, a group blog for religious progressives where I used to cross-post my entries, also went offline.
Slowly, in my (har har) free time, I’ve been working at replacing what has been lost, to the extent that I can. (No, I haven’t been able to get any response from anyone at Blogger/Blogspot as to what happened.) Here is my new blog, which I am hosting on our own web space, which I’m hoping will be more secure than starting a new blog on one of the blog hosting services. Please pass this along to anyone who might be interested.
FYI, here is what I had written in the past about the raison d’etre for the Religious Left blog I created:
Over the past few years, as I have learned my way around the Internet, I have really come to appreciate the networking potential it offers. As the mother of young children (at one point a homeschooler) I found it to be a vital resource for finding information and making connections. I even found my way to Saint Stephen’s via the Internet, after searching The Center for Progressive Christianity web site for a member church in my area.
When I discovered the Center for Progressive Christianity, I was, of course, thrilled, but my second reaction was “Why did it take me so long to find out about this? I also lamented the fact that the face of Christianity looked a lot like George W. Bush or Jerry Falwell to many people. Even though it felt really out of character for me to start talking about religion–unbidden, whether people wanted to hear it or not–I felt I was being called to do so. I created a weblog called The Religious Left as my way of answering that call with Mary’s “Yes” instead of Jonah’s “Run away!!!”
