Happy New Year 2010 (the Year of the Tiger) to all of you out there!

I’d like to thank everyone who visited the site last year and hope to continue to receive visits from regular readers, people who are web-browsing, and those who have just happened to stumble upon what you see here.

Although I had written more than four months ago that I felt Tenrikology.com was lacking a personal touch and stated a hope that I would go on to do something about this, maybe the time is not just ripe yet for making regular assessments of my spiritual well-being just of yet for the reason I’ve already let four months pass since then, without making any progress on sharing what I called my “rich” experiences of July 2009. But I think some personal touches have started to seep into my Blogging Anecdotes of Oyasama project, for better or for worse. (I find it somewhat amusing but also somewhat alarming that a post in this series in which I bemoan my personal circumstances happens to have a comparatively high number of hits.)

In any case, I do hope to make spiritual enrichment a personal goal to aspire to in 2010 on top of my main task of figuring out what I really want to do in life before my current contract expires. Spending all my time working on Tenrikyology.com isn’t going to feed my family.

As for goals for this site itself, I don’t plan on making major changes content-wise or adding new features for the time being. I expect the Blogging Anecdotes of Oyasama series I started last year to keep me plenty occupied for the time being. I was lucky enough to complete up to Anecdotes 75 last year, and my ambition is to reach Anecdotes 175 at the end of this year and round up the series altogether in March or April 2011.

Some of my experiences and e-mail correspondence last year suggest that doing basic research on Tenrikyo can prove to be a difficult and frustrating experience for those who have been unlucky enough to be assigned for such a task. There really isn’t much out there in terms of general resources that the layperson can use to, for instance, do a short Religion 101 project on this obscure faith.

Such is what I feel might be the most pressing issue that I should be devoting most of my attention to, but admittedly, I’m not sure if I’m the right person for the job. I ideally would like to finish up what I’ve started before I apply all my efforts toward this outstanding issue.