Here begins my next adventure in blogging. My old site, 299 New Jerusalem, was at http://smith975.blogspot.com/. It’s still there. I posted from 2008-9, and it was mostly a travelogue. Determined to reengage, I decided to have another go at online posting but to abandon the effort to describe church meetings and trips. I intend now to write on occasional topics that interest me. That’s all. Most of the topics will still be about the church, but you should know that lots of other things interest me—dogs, bread, fermented vegetables, to name a few. I am giving myself permission to write more bluntly but (I hope) never rudely. Be forewarned.

I also determined to use WordPress and to splurge on a new domain name. Why? Because the name that I wanted was available, much to my surprise. There are, after all, so many Smiths and so little time. I expected that the domain would have been snatched up long ago by some other among the millions of Smiths in the world. The number 975 reminds me that I have been bishoping for a while now, and the consecration numbers for new bishops have long required four digits. We are around 1100 as I write. The sell-by date for any excuse at being new at this ministry has long since expired. This blog is one effort to see if I have anything to show for these years.