Housekeeping « Wondering Fair

Wondering Fair at 100,000!

21 11 2011

The internet can be a restless place. I often find myself wandering, eager to feel an enlivening presence on the other side of websites and articles. I start the day with news websites to help me feel connected to the wider world: cultural trends, economic crises, wars and rumors of wars. I open my Facebook account and catch up a bit with friends. I read about politics or sports and feel entertained and part of epic battles. I open my email account, eager to return to work and dreading the long list of unanswered emails. If I’m still feeling lazy, I go read some how-to blog or website to feel that I’m at least sharpening a skill here and there.

Still, as my eyes skim paragraphs and process logos, links and pictures, I notice my brain up and running but my soul yawning big time. There is so much to absorb and learn, and yet there is so little that nourishes me. I see events, faces, and products popping up unannounced, but it is hard to glimpse soul food amidst the online desert.

That is why I’ve been cherishing Wondering Fair so much. I don’t know how you experience it, but for me Wondering Fair is like taking a break with a friend across the table. The article of the day may be a big-picture discussion or a personal story, it may deal with the latest culture development or with long-gone authors, but at Wondering Fair I feel engaged, nourished, settled. I hear a friend throwing an idea across the table – gracefully, thoughtfully, using words like little gems that shine. I hear ideas that matters, that often cross the line of social conventions and address faith and heart issues with candor, and I can hear the voice and feel the presence behind the words too.

Sometime this week we will celebrate Wondering Fair’s 100,000th visit. Our community has been picking up speed, and now we have about 500 visits a day, from all over the globe. Maybe you’ve just arrived here, or maybe you’ve been with WF since our first days, but thank you for being part of this journey. We’re thrilled that you’ve been around. Feel free to send a suggestion, place a comment or craft a WF article. We hope to keep WF a meeting place online, and we count on you to keep enriching our conversation.

René Breuel

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Tags: blogs, connection, internet, media, online, restlessness, Wondering Fair
Categories : Housekeeping

Wondering Fair at 30,000

21 01 2011

Wondering Fair starts off 2011 with 30,000 visits! From elephant art to the problem of evil, from sex and politics to a spirituality of beauty, WF has sought to convey a thoughtful, dialogging voice on matters of life and faith in the internet. We are thrilled with our first months in 2011, and would like to thank you for being part of this journey. Here are a few ways you can contribute to our conversation and make Wondering Fair even better in 2011!

Help us spread the word: we would love to extend our Wondering Fair community even farther. You could help us make WF useful for more people by recommending it or specific articles at Facebook, for example. Or you may be talking with friend about spiritual matters, and a WF article could help to express some insight or drive the conversation further, so shoot him/her a link.

Send us feedback and suggestions: what do you like best about Wondering Fair, and what can we do better? Is there a specific issue you would like to see addressed? A good blog we could link with? You can write in the comment areas or to wonderingfair@ymail.com.

Write an article: if you feel compelled about the way we try to dialog with culture and discuss spiritual matters, and you have an insight or perspective to share, consider crafting an article for WF! There are regular contributors to start the conversation, but we would love to see greater interaction among everyone, so give it a shot.

In order to not finish this post without giving folks something to think about, here are a couple useless quotes:

“The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.” Somerset Maugham
“Humor is a reminder that no matter how high the throne one sits on, one sits on one’s bottom.” Taki

René Breuel

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Categories : Housekeeping

Ten Thousand Virtual Coffees Served

23 09 2010

Wondering Fair celebrates today 10,000 visits! Although no match for McDonald’s or Starbucks’ number of coffees served, we are thrilled to have started our own virtual cafeteria and for the community gathering around it. Thanks to everyone involved, be it through writing, commenting, offering suggestions and helping us spread the word around. Our community is expanding bit by bit, and now includes visits from 80 countries. Cheers to folks down in Libya and the Netherlands Antilles!

News from the WF team of contributors: after renovating her basement during the summer, Jessica is considering construction work if things don’t go as planned, while Hélder is offering consultancy on IKEA furniture assembly. Matt Gray’s baby daughter, the cute gal to the right, has just started giggling, and selected 11:30 pm as her hour of giggle party. Matt writes: “It’s hard to quietly rock to sleep a kid who’s woken up in fits of laughter – you find yourself fluctuating from exhausted annoyance to wanting to join in on the joke.” Madi continues on as a non-stipendiary domestic goddess and waits her second baby, also congrats! Her big challenge now: ”trying to stop myself eating more than two bags of salt and vinegar crisps in a row.”

Although not pregnant, Dave also reports snack cutbacks: “I’m discovering first-hand how one’s metabolism slows after 33! … Crispy-Creme Donuts are no longer my friend–doh!” Also not pregnant, but now experienced in labor-level pain, René is cutting back on goodies too, after a luxurious 3-day reading break in hospital, thanks to a kidney crisis and Rome’s calcium-packed tap water. Mineral water everyone! Jeremy, on the other hand, has had a less acute but more spectacular pain: his chair collapsed right when he was leading a committee meeting at work, to a chorus of gasps. He emerged to to wave a white flag and carry on, but maybe offering Dave’s left-over Crispy-Creme Donuts to everyone could also have worked.

One special thanks goes to Matt Stauffer, who blogs here, and who has been helping us tweak the look and design of Wondering Fair. Articles are more visually readable now, and more lookin’-good improvements are on the way.

As a gift to everyone, besides our regular articles by contributors and guests, John Stackhouse has just posted a new answer to a reader question, at Ask John, and Dave Benson and a team of fellow Aussies have produced a new mp3 resource, One Path, Many Doors, available at the Media page. Enjoy!

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Tags: News, Wondering Fair
Categories : Housekeeping

WF’s 1-month anniversary

12 08 2010

Wondering Fair celebrates today its first month! We are thrilled with the global community which is forming around WF, and hope our articles, discussions and media resources help you reflect on various issues and have a place to relax a bit and interact with others.

Today we also reach the mark of 5000 visits to WF, and from many corners of the world. So far WF has received visitors from 52 countries, and while we are excited to start a conversation that includes people from so many different backgrounds, we want to press further and continue to spread the word around. So help us include more people around the table and share WF with friends.

As an 1-month anniversary bonus, we are happy to welcome the newest member of Wondering Fair’s team of regular contributors: Madi Simpson. We are thrilled to welcome you, Madi, and excited to see how Wondering Fair keeps on evolving in the coming months.

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Categories : Housekeeping

The Grit on the Track

17 07 2010

[Editor's note: we are very encouraged by the feedback we've received for Wondering Fair during its first week! We appreciate your comments and emails, and hope you'll stick around. Some friends have also expressed the wish for a larger share of female contributors, so WF can voice better women's perspectives and so it can witness to the ideal that God speaks through women and men alike. We wholeheartedly agree, and are looking for ways to incorporate more female voices. We also welcome guest articles; so speak up, ladies! In the meantime, here is a Luci Shaw poem as a weekend bonus.]

The ground is always there, witnessing
how you walk. You need light to travel
a dark path, and you need to travel light.
Otherwise the shadows that turn out to be
submerged boulders and roots will trip you,
and your heavy pack will bear you down
into the hard anguish of gravel that is more
than your knees can bear. Even roadside dust
clings to your heels as if God is in
every fiber, a kind of mineral truth
present in every crystal of sand.

Gravity, and the possibility of falling,
will keep you aware. In the twilight you
come home from walking the dog in the woods
with the walk still clinging to you — twigs
and the stain of berries on your soles.
Each humus clod from the forest floor
answers back — another footfall. This is all
my handwork, he is saying. Stay with this mud,
this granite. Every other step you take
will be a revelation.

Luci Shaw

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Categories : Housekeeping