For many years, part of my daily ritual included writing a blog post. I believe there was one three year stretch of time where I wrote a blog post every day, with a few rare exceptions. With other things that have come up, I don’t write as often as I did.

Another ritual is wishing friends happy birthday on Facebook. I currently have around 3000 friends on Facebook, which means on an average day, I have about eight Facebook friends celebrating birthdays. For more distant friends, I take this as an opportunity to catch up on what they’ve been posting, because I don’t always see everyone’s Facebook post.

Recently, I’ve been spending more time reading posts from others on Facebook, especially when it leads to deeper thinking or opportunities for dialog about the issues of the day. Sometimes, I check Google News for the latest news, but often I see that via Facebook or Twitter.

There have been times that I’ve prayed The Daily Office. It provides a helpful counterbalance to the news of the day, a timeless contrast to the ephemeral.

This takes up much of my screen time and reading time each day, yet I also look for things to read and view that broaden my mind, or provide some relaxation. For a broader views of what is going on, I’ve returned to sites like NewsTrust and Global Voices.

In the past, I’ve also written about MOOCs and various online courses as a means to broaden perspective. One of my favorite sites these days is Open Culture

We will see what the New Year brings. Perhaps, it will be posts combining thoughts from many of these sources.