Thursday, July 16, 2009

Saints' Prayers, and the Future

I have added a 'short form' and 'long form' link to Saints' Prayers so that if you wish to read more of the prayers before having to scroll the screen, you may do so. I certainly like to.

I have at various times contemplating doing more than merely Saints' Books, Prayers, and Quotes.

There are other potential types of websites of this style that could be done. I have prayed and thought about it, and perhaps shall do it.

The two kinds would be these. Saints' Music, and Saints' Images.

There are two little difficulties with these sites, the first is, most musicians and artists aren't saints. In fact, those fields tend to produce more people headed down than up in greater numbers than already sad average.

So, the material for the sites would either take some gathering, or I would have to be more liberal in my requirements for the artists, simply taking the stance of judging each piece of music or art without reference to the artist -- or perhaps an inbetween, a medium of that method and the other. I haven't quite found the balance suitable yet, and so have not yet proceeded.

I tend to suddenly see the benefits for the older habit of artists not to sign their works, acknowledging when it is good, the grace of God, and keeping their own selves out of the matter.

The other problem is the civil law and copyrights, which are clear on quotations and out of print books, but a bit murkier on pictures of fine art, which can be shared liberally but technically not be as allowed despite first sharer's liberality, and even worse with music, restricting a great deal of work that simply deserves to be unrestricted. There are thankfully some good repositories of so-called 'open music' out there to choose from, but it is a smaller field than one would like, with the quality not as high as one would like generally.

I have no intention of operating any royalty paying radio-station type site. That would be too much for me, a single individual.

I have also contemplating a 'Saints' Tracts' site, which would consist of tracts of the kind that can be forwarded in emails, or handed out, on various topics -- but again, a good deal of work to prepare the content for this, especially. It is far easier to excerpt quotes, and to correct and prepare old books, than to either create new tracts or gather sufficient old ones. I lack the material to launch this as of yet.

I used to run the 'Spiritual Guidebook' website, it received a large amount of traffic before its end. At times I contemplate resurrecting it, but being a different person am not certain how to go about rewriting it. It was in a fashion a precursor to how I operate today -- mainly quotations from others, myself attempting to be less present, something which I have far more perfected today in the current websites.

I sometimes contemplate myself, as a monk, running away and hiding from people, until forced to by some moral rule or another to actually speak. I like the picture more than a little. I would like to, myself, meet someone like that. I am getting better at picturing the way various kinds of people could live holy and saintly lives as time goes by.

One of my favorite saints, I must say, by the way, is St. Christina the Astonishing. Though it is almost unfair to say 'favorite' of so many differently graced in beautiful ways, people, each showing forth Christ in some way or another.

I have yet to launch my appeal for funds for translators, but it will be out there. I also have to do some more advertising for the sites, to get greater traffic. One of my hoped for 'big links' from a major site has not come through, and it appears may not ever.

We shall see how it goes. As the Lord wills, let it be. :)

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