Welcome! Why a blog now?

Seems to me an adequate answer to that question would be another question, why not now?  Perhaps a better, and more probing, question would be, what took you so long?  This has been germinating in the back of my mind for a long time, and the unique possibilities of writing and publishing in this way have long intrigued me.  Now that, because of my prostate surgery a week ago today, I have an extended period of enforced, distraction-free (more or less!) "leisure" to devote to mind and spirit (while body is sometimes slow to cooperate), I finally thought, no time like the present.

Why "legacy"? Last year I was thinking about what could be my best gift to Our Lady of the Assumption Parish as I enter my fifteenth and final year as pastor.  My thoughts revolved around two poles: first, my own abilities and interests (what do I do best?); and second, a needs assessment of the parish community (what do they need from me?)  As to the first, learning-teaching-sharing, in an engaging and non-academic way, open to everybody, is one of my passions; as to the second, I think one of the greatest unmet, often unrecognized, needs in our Church today is an intelligent understanding of our faith heritage: what do we believe and why?    Around this, I designed a series of public presentations, about two a month, that I would give during my final year here.  So far, they've gove pretty well and have been well received.  I've also put them up on the OLA website, though not in as organized a way as I would like.  In the fall one had to be canceled because I had blindly double-booked myself, and of course, January has had to be rearranged because of my surgery.  The next one is scheduled for Thursday evening, February 12, and will tackle one of my favorite subjects, liturgy or why do we do the stuff we do on Sunday?"

As my "Legacy Series" progressed, I spoke about my own history of faith, as well as my perspective on what's been happening in the Church over the past sixty or so years that I've been experiencing it.  I was hoping (and at the same time fearing) to get into some of the controversial, "hot button" issues about the Church in our day -- and the number seems to be increasing.  That is still my goal, and I hope will form a major part of this blog. 

I hope to invite dialogue and real conversation in this blog, so I am also inviting your comments.  However, I am going to be tightly monitoring comments, and will not allow any to be posted that are anonymous, offensive or argumentative.  While it's okay to disagree, it's not okay to be disagreeable.  My goal is the kind of sharing that can lead to mutual understanding.  There are plenty of forums in which people can argue or dump their garbage.  This will not be one of them. 

Welcome, then, to a little slice of my world.

Fr. Tom Welbers

P.S. Legacy (definition): something handed on from the past.  A word about style.  I want to keep the layout simply and uncluttered.  My experience with aging eyesight is that computer screens do not mimic paper very well.  It's a lot easier on the eyes to read high contrast white letters on a black screen than to decipher black or (God-forbid) gray letters in the glare of a white screen.  There's no hudden symbolism to my choice of colors, fonts, or layout.  Ease of reading and navigation, that's it.