Happy Birthday to Me!

(GUEST POST BY The CandyMan)

It's a warm night in Northern California, and as I leave work I feel a certain calm. I'm tired - this is the second night in a row I've left work after 10PM. But the night is still, and I'm hopeful. The sting of Prop 8's passage has worn off, I feel good about the work I got done, and (as it so often does these days) my mind turns to the blog. I take a moment to marvel at the range of emotions that I have shown, and my readers have shown, over the past year, and remember how lucky I am to be alive.

I first posted on LNM exactly a year ago today, and it's been a wild ride. Although I post only once a week, I still check the blog every day and spend waaaaaaaay too much time on it. Every post takes me at least a couple hours, and sometimes several days, to prepare. Nevertheless, I have to admit that this blog is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to LNM for letting me post on his blog every week and for building a very active base of readers and commentors before I even showed up.

Originally, the idea was for me to post about the weekly Torah portion. An early post, Kings of England, certainly ruffled some feathers. It dealt with Biblical criticism - I'm still quite proud of that one. It's Not Written in Stone addressed another important idea - can the Torah change over time? Both posts provoked some lively discussion.

Interestingly, of the Biblical stuff, my most popular post was probably The Biggest Jerk, which mythbusts the notion that male masturbation is a sin. Sex sells, I suppose. Another "sex" post, Elliot Mess, delved into the gender double standard of Biblical adultery. This set off a huge discussion, which quickly moved to our favorite hotbutton political issue on the blog, gay marriage.

I finally came out of my shell with an abstract piece about racism within Judaism, What Would God Do? I call that post my CandyManifesto. After that, it was basically bombs away for liberal politics. It's been a super political year, and I wanted to post on what really mattered to me.

Several of my posts touched on making peace between Jewish Israelis and Arabs. This is the most important thing we can do for our peoples, and for the world. Our two cultures have an incredible amount in common, and I always suggest that we use this as a platform to build bridges. My favorite post on this is Turkish Delight, in which I describe a dinner party I attended by a "frum" Muslim friend of mine. Many readers seemed to really enjoy this post.

The centerpiece of my work this year was a four-part series called Tevya, Torah, and Jewish Identity. The series dealt with questions about discrimination, intermarriage, and Jewish survival. Ultimately, the question became, Why Be Jewish, and I proposed a platform on which we might grow and sustain Judaism in this new, global era. These are among my most personal posts. They stimulated a lot of discussion, including some helpful advice by a couple of new readers.

Our favorite political topic on the blog is, of course, gay rights and marriage equality. This topic has dominated my last few posts, starting with Fast of the Just and culminating with Restoration of Balance, which I wrote only days after Prop 8 passed. The latter post really sent some of my readers into conniptions, which was OK with me because I was pretty upset, too.

(Oooooo! Bill O'Reilly's on the Daily show right now! This is good stuff.)

One of the things I discovered about myself blogging: I seem to possess some kind of poison pen. Specifically, my posts seem to send certain readers into a tiffy! They can't stand me! I can practically hear them foaming at the mouth in the comments. And yet, they keep coming back to read my posts. I am amazed at this strange power of mine, which I am still learning to control.

I have learned a lot from my readers, received some excellent advice and also emotional support. This has especially been true on the topic of my relationship with my parents. Although disagreements with my readers are less fun, I value those as well, because it helps me see where the gaps are in communication. One thing I've learned is that are as many different kinds of skepticism as there are different sides to religion. Skepticism doth not (necessarily) a liberal make. On the flip side, sometimes learning Torah can make someone more liberal, something I take for granted but many readers do not. These are complexities I did not appreciate before I started blogging, and they explain a lot of the emotion and confusion that my posts evoke. I look forward to discussing this more in the coming year.

(What? Colbert is on the cover of Amazing Spider Man?)

Looking back, I probably spent too much time fighting the trolls on the blog and not enough time building bridges with my allies. Perhaps this is why so many skeptic blogs wither and die... everyone feels as if she is on her own. For my "new year's resolution," I plan on doing less debating with people whose minds are already made up. Instead, I'll use that time to branch out to my allies via e-mails and the like.

And I'm not going anywhere. I have tons more to blog about, way more than I could ever get to with my busy schedule! I feel like I could blog forever. So, here's hoping for bigger and better things in this coming year. Thanks again to LNM for running the blog, and thanks to all of you, especially those who have been supportive and offered good advice. Let me know in the comments what your favorite post was. Did I forget anything?