In journalism, the motto is “If it bleeds, it leads”. The more disastrous a story, the more likely it is to get a lot of play in the media. I have tried to offset that tendency at my blog by highlighting little-known stories of grace which show that God is working in this world. I think in heaven the stories that get the most “press” are stories like the ones below.

The Top 10 stories from my blog in 2009:

1) If you kill me, I’ll go to heaven and you’ll go to hell. One of my most popular posts, the embedded video tells the story of an elderly woman who stopped an attacker in his tracks with the Gospel.

2) Joyful Sisters. The story of a woman who found her vocation through the witness of joyful sisters.

3) How could you have brought us to this insane place? The story of what happens when a Baptist minister visits an Orthodox Divine Liturgy.

4) You know Catholics. A woman does her part to fulfill the command of Genesis 1:28.

5) Born again at 90. A man reads the Bible in his old age and becomes Catholic.

6) My mom dragged me into Church and I ended up a priest. The story of an Evangelical who goes to a Catholic church unwillingly and ends up a priest.

7) Vocations crisis! A post about the “problem” the Nashville Dominicans are facing.

8) Came to Church for the girls, ended up a priest. The vocations story of Msgr. Charles Pope, who initially came to church for less-than-ideal reasons.

9) I did not understand how people could pray to a weak and dying God. The power of the Gospel takes hold of a Sikh.

10) Sisters come home. An order of Episcopal religious sisters decide to swim the Tiber.

We can get caught up in the negative news which the mainstream media makes part of our daily diet, but we must always remember that God is active in this world: we just need to open our eyes to see it!

Yesterday I posted my Top 10 Most Popular Posts by traffic. Today I will post the Top 10 Most Commented Posts:

1) To be deep in history is to cease to be angry. What was highly ironic about the ensuing discussion of this post was how angry many people got.

2) In defense of the Novus Ordo. Anyone familiar with the Catholic Blogosphere should understand why a blog post with this title would get a good number of comments.

3) Coming out of the closet. After liturgy issues, Harry Potter is a surefire way to generate a lot of comments.

4) Really Catholic and Uber Catholic. I had a number of great additions to my list in the comments.

5) Fact: demanding, liturgical churches attract youth. Rule #1 of Catholic blogs: discussion of liturgy=comments.

6) Truth. Another good way to generate comments: mention President Obama and abortion.

7) Rules of Engagement for Catholics on the Internet. Fortunately, no one seemed to break the rules in the comments for this post.

8) “Filioque” means “division”. This post generated my favorite discussion of the year, as a number of people were able to contribute valuable insights into this age-old point of division.

9) Why I love being Catholic. Usually “negative” posts generate the most comments, but I was pleased to see the response to this “positive” post of mine.

10) Scott Hahn becomes Muslim! My April Fools contribution generated a few comments, unfortunately including some who took it as an opportunity to criticize Dr. Hahn.

Every blogger loves comments, so in 2010 feel free to leave your own!

This week I plan on posting some “Top 10″ lists related to my blog. I will start with a list of the Top 10 Most Popular Posts (by traffic) from 2009:

1) How many silent monks does it take to sing Handel’s Messiah? A popular YouTube video showing a high-school production of monks “singing” Handel’s Messiah with cue cards. This link must have gotten embedded in a wide-spreading email, because about a week after it was posted it started receiving hundreds of visitors per day from out of the blue.

2) Really Catholic and Uber Catholic. My tongue-in-cheek take on what makes someone “really” Catholic or “über” Catholic.

3) If you kill me, I’ll go to heaven and you’ll go to hell. A cute video about an elderly woman who brought her attacker to tears by preaching the Gospel to him.

4) Tiger Woods and Pornography. A look at the connection between Tiger’s failings and the everyday temptations we all face.

5) What would Catholic-Orthodox reunion look like? A look at two proposals which have been made regarding Catholic-Orthodox reunion.

6) Rules of Engagement for Catholics on the Internet. A list of rules I try to follow when engaged with others on the Internet.

7) Coming out of the closet. In which I divulge a deep, dark secret: I am a Harry Potter fan.

8) How could you have brought us to this insane place? The story of “Real Live Preacher” – a Baptist minister who decided to attend an Eastern Orthodox liturgy and was blown away.

9) When Mass makes you angry. A discussion of why the Liturgy is so important and what to do when its implementation makes you angry.

10) To be deep in history is to cease to be angry. In which I discuss how the more you know history, the more peaceful you become about current problems in the Church.

As is obvious, I’ve redesigned the blog. When I originally set up the blog, I went with the default design, but I always intended to do something different. The old design was a bit dull, and I thought the text was too small. Well, I finally got around to redesigning it this weekend. Hope you enjoy the new look!

After I uploaded my last posting, I realized that the first sentence read, “Often when there is debate within the Church about some controversial movement or vision or person, defenders will trout out the positive “fruits” as a definitive proof that the phenomenon is legitimate and from God.” Now, I realize there often can be grammatical and spelling mistakes in blog posts, as they are not heavily edited, but I usually do check my posts for errors, but somehow this one was missed.

I’m not sure exactly how a defender can “trout” out a fruit – perhaps they swim down the river to grab it? I do know that when I was a boy my uncle would often trot me down to the river to do some trout fishing; perhaps that was the cause of my confusion?

Now I’m getting hungry for some fresh trout…I think I’ll trot down to the grocery store to see if any is available…

My site was down for the past 8-10 hours due to technical issues. Isn’t technology grand?

Blogging will be light (and possibly non-existent) next week as I will be out of town.

As Mark always says, keep those beans out of those noses!

Just a few weeks after I started this blog back in January, I had visitors from every state in the union except North Dakota. Since that time, I have had thousands of visitors from over 100 countries, yet still no one from North Dakota even accidentaly landed at my blog. I started to wonder: was North Dakota anti-Catholic? Did they not have the Internet yet? What could explain their apparent lack of Catholic taste? I stayed up late every night contemplating such mysteries.

Finally, my mind can be at rest: last week I had not one, but two, visitors from North Dakota!

Welcome to all from the Flickertail State – I hope you enjoy your stay!

Voting is now open for the Catholic New Media Awards. This blog is nominated in the following categories:

• Best Blog by a Man
• Best New Blog (I am listed twice in this category for some reason under two of my URLs – vote for the one that says “The Divine Life: Why We Were Created”)
• Funniest Blog
• Most Entertaining Blog
• Most Informative Blog

I figure I have no chance in any category except “Best New Blog,” but in that category I’m running against myself, so my vote might be split against me (“Vote for me!” “No, vote for me!” “Wait a minute, you are me!”). Perhaps I’ll make a backroom deal with myself in a smoke-filled room to swing the election in my way.

If I win any category, I promise to bring hope and change to the blogosphere. Change you can hope for. Hope you can change. Hope for change. Change your hope. Hope. Change. Vote for “The Divine Life: Why We Were Created” and you’ll have enough hope and change to make you nauseous.

Voting starts today for the Catholic New Media Awards (for which this blog is nominated in a number of categories), but I want to call your attention to the Eastern Christian New Media Awards. The ECNMA are open to any Eastern Christian site; as the site says: “Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, Assyrian Church of the East et al. are welcome and encouraged to be submitted for voting.”

Go to the site now and peruse the many fine nominations and vote for your favorites!

The Catholic New Media Awards Nominees were announced yesterday, and this blog was nominated for the following awards:

• Best Blog by a Man (I’m honored that I was recognized as a man)
• Most Informative Blog
• Funniest Blog
• Most Entertaining Blog
• Best New Blog

Voting starts June 1st, and this year Chicago-style voting (vote early, vote often) will not be allowed. Be sure to vote!

Speaking of Catholic New Media technologists, nominations for the Catholic New Media Awards will close on May 25th, so if there is a blog you wish to nominate (for example, for the “Best New Blog” award), do so soon.

The Catholic New Media Awards is now taking nominations for this year’s awards (go here for previous winners). Categories for blogs include:

People’s Choice Blog
Best Blog by a Cleric
Best Blog by a Religious
Best Blog by a Man
Best Blog by a Woman
Best Group Blog
Best Written Blog
Most Spiritual Blog
Most Informative Blog
Funniest Blog
Most Entertaining Blog
Best New Blog (Ahem…my blog is new this year…)

Go nominate your favorite blogs now! (You have to register with their site to do so.)

Sorry for anyone who tried to visit the blog the past few hours – my hosting company was having some technical problems and the site was down during that time. Fortunately, we are back up now (obviously), for if we had been down for a few more minutes, President Obama was about to declare a state of national emergency.

As a convert, I don’t have any family members who are Catholic. But I just found out that there is another Sammons who is Catholic; not only that, but he is a blogging Franciscan friar! Being a blogger myself who loves all things Franciscan, I have to say that I am extremely excited about that. Needless to say, his blog has been added to my blogroll.

Brother Charles – make the Sammons name proud!