Category Archives: community

My Blogging History

blogging, community

For those few who follow this blog, you may have noticed an uptick in posts. I made a decision that I needed to either blog regularly or give it up. The algorithm heard me and presented me with Blaugust 2026, a daily blogging challenge held each August that has been around since 2014. The original mastermind, Belghast, died earlier this summer, but the community is continuing on.

Today’s prompt asked about your first blog. Hmmm…it was at least 20 years ago or more and was probably created with Blogger. I used the tool to create newsletters for several state-wide grants.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the blog for Virginia’s Community of Learning. It accompanied the larger Community of Learning, a collaboration between several education organizations started in 2000 to help teachers grapple with this new thing called the Internet.

As for personal blogging, I suspect there was an early Blogger version, but I pivoted to WordPress pretty quickly, using it as a web publishing tool under my own domain. In this inaugural post at Simply Karen from September 21, 2004, I mention two personal blogs being combined into this one blog. Hence the name: In One Place.

During graduate school, I decided I needed a stand-along blog to accompany an independent study in media and media literacy. The current blog was born in 2006.

I maintained both blogs until January 2023 when I decided I was going to use Simply Karen for daily photos. That plan did not pan out, but I did move my active blogging to In Another Place.

As with many technologies, I have been involved with blogs since they appeared. I remember that at the start, blogging was meant to be a way to connect people. Bloggers linked to other bloggers and commented on their ideas. That is part of the impetus behind Blaugust. Not just writing but connecting, a throwback to the original intent of the tool. Easy to publish writing that connected to a larger community. It seems as though connection is still a focus but in a more commercialized way, with SEO and ad revenue playing a larger role. But then, I suppose that is the story of the history of the Internet.

I would like to believe old fashioned blogging can still play a role. Welcome Blaugust 2026!

A Sunday Story

Civil Discourse, community, thinking out loud,

Prologue: I have been trying to put some words together about life right now. I am not sure I make a clear point but am going to press publish anyway. And, warning, this is not an optimistic post but a culmination of a week of observation and rumination as I figure out how to move forward.

Yesterday, the Universe played one of her pranks: I had to attend church. I have joined a handbell choir that practices at a nearby United Methodist Church, and we were part of the service. The choir itself is ecumenical so there is no expectation of joining the church, and no one has asked me to attend even as they are welcoming and grateful for my participation. I love playing handbells, an activity that requires other people. And since it usually happens within some religious connection, it means going to church.

My home denomination is United Methodist so the order of service was very comfortable although very different from the services I have been attending with my parents at their retirement community. There were lots of young families, and it was clear the congregation was thriving, contrary to reports in the wider media. These young families were the next generation of several generations of ancestors who had chosen to bloom where they were planted. I happened to be there on All Saints Sunday, and the service began with the readings of those who had passed over those generations. That meant, in my small rural community, there were many shared last names.

I was a little worried, to be honest, as, other than those retirement community chapel services, I haven’t been to church for a long time, despite having been an active member of several congregations as an adult. It was utterly my fault as even the Unitarian Universalists eventually were a bit too much organized religion for me, but that’s a story for another time.

I have thought a lot about the Sunday service: they celebrated veterans and ancestors, which included children from the church’s pre-school marching and gesturing to God Bless America. Everyone was filming with their cell phones, more like a school concert than church service. There was loud applause throughout the service. (In case you weren’t aware, clapping in church is a hot controversy, evidenced by a quick Google search. The UUs tended toward hand or bulletin waving but had never made a strict policy as was their way.)

The patriotic singing and flag waving might have been concerning had it not been Veteran’s Day. Otherwise, there were no politics, no seeming celebration or gloating, and the sermon, all of five minutes, focused on Jesus’s command in Matthew 22: 36-40 to love your God and love your neighbor. The title–Who is my neighbor?–was a little misleading as the youngish minister, dressed informally in jeans and a striped shirt, focused more on the fact that God loves you and you should love others. That was it. I had sort of looked forward to hearing what he had to say about the answer to his question in light of recent events.

But trying to find an answer gets pretty messy, pretty quickly, and I think was beyond the scope of a simple Sunday service if recent responses to Dan Harris’s post on Instagram are any indication. Harris has been posting clips of last week’s Q&A on Instagram, with many of the questions expressing concern for the election outcome and what it means for the future, from anger to fear to despair. The responses on social media show that there is NO common ground, and while my sympathies may lie with those who are struggling, the posts and replies from both sides are often blunt, bordering on rude, with a side of name calling for good measure. One side says get over it, you are being dramatic. The other side gives reasons for their fear. I know social media doesn’t represent everyone and tends towards these extremes, but the rhetoric itself shows a callousness towards others that has only grown over time and is often what drives media coverage of our country.

It is this divisiveness that I fear the most. When we can’t wrestle with theological questions about the meaning of loving your neighbor but resort to simple aphorisms, when we can’t disagree with each other without demonizing the other side, we are on a downward spiral.

Finding Inspiration

community, Nature, thinking out loud

I am still struggling to find words. I am angry, grief stricken, fearful. And desperately trying to apply my meditation practice: breathing, focusing, keeping from spiraling into stories of dark and evil days to come. But acceptance of the present moment is challenging and finding the energy to send open hearted loving kindness to those on the other side seems impossible. Hence, my posts this week. Moments of calm and quiet to turn to when life gets overwhelming.

I am fortunate to spend time with my soon-to-be nonagenarian parents at their retirement community. I have been able to hang out with their friends as well as part of dinner parties, musical groups and book studies. These seniors have a refreshing perspective, a long view, that arcs towards gratitude and joy despite having their share of heartache and trauma.

I stumbled upon this video from Reflections of Life, two filmmakers who record stories that focus on our shared humanity. Wisdom at 96 features Dot Fisher-Smith:

Finding Community

community, Meditation, Vision, ,

My inbox was a source of solace and inspiration this morning:

Jose Vilson provided perspective on this time and the need to grieve but also to continue to join together with others to fight for our values in his blog post, Don’t Obey in Advance.

The Center for Action and Contemplation is hosting a Virtual Sit Meditation next week:

In this space we will gather in simple presence, bearing witness to each other and to the complex realities we face without needing to resolve them. In stillness, we will honor our shared humanity and the grace that exists, even amid our collective uncertainty. Together, we’ll pause to breathe, reflect, and embrace whatever feelings we bring, knowing that we are not alone.

We invite you to join us on YouTube for a time to be together in stillness and reflection on Tuesday, November 12 from 7:30 – 8:00am PT (3:30 – 4:00pm GMT).

Join the Livestream

Dan Harris, founder of Ten Percent Happier and now out on his own, has been hosting meditation get togethers every day this week over on Substack. The next one is at 11 AM today. He will continue to be a source of wisdom and comfort to the community.

This song has been going through my head:

AI, AI, Everywhere

21st Century Skills, Artificial Intelligence, community, Second Life, technology, ,

I had an interesting conversation with my sister and my father when we were together last weeked to celebrate my mother’s 88th birthday. I’m working on a blog post about the changing nature of work that I will post at some point, but as I looked for data to support my ideas, I was distracted by Pew Research Center’s collection of data related to Artificial Intelligence. In particular, two recent articles seem to conflict a bit in perspective, a sign that we are in a period of real volatility when it comes to this technology.

One article provides evidence that most Americans haven’t tried ChatGPT and aren’t concerned about its impact on their lives. The other reports on the growing public concern with AI. As for the former, I am reminded of a conversation I had with an early adopter of the first widely used virtual community, Second Life. It certainly had implications for the potential of online interactions, but you couldn’t get your real life hair cut or your real life tires replaced. Local communities were still going to be important. And, even with the rise of AI, I think that continues to be true. At some point, I suppose a robot will cut my hair or replace my tires, but for the foreseeable future, it will be flesh-and-blood Olivia and Proctor who help me with those services.

As for the latter headline, I think we should be concerned when a technology that we only sort of understand undergoes such a rapid expansion. The educators I know are learning all they can about AI, especially within their own fields of study. They are also engaging in conversations with colleagues about how to use the tools for their own productivity and with their students.