Happy New Year! (2025)

Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to 2025! 🎉 I’ve been wanting to write to you all since last month, but I wasn’t sure what to say. But guess what? I started journaling this year, and I found that I do have things to share.

First of all, if you visited the website after receiving my last newsletter, you will have noticed that it's gotten a new theme (Dawn). I chose Dawn because, unlike the previous (Casper) theme, Dawn is more minimalist.

The home page draws your attention to the featured and most recent posts, which frankly speaking, are the posts I generally want you to pay the most attention to. Instead of putting the whole library of my blog posts to scroll through, Dawn exposes a selection of Featured posts, and 5 of the most recent regular posts at once. If you are one of my followers, the posts you haven't read yet are likely among these. However, you can always "Load more" if you wish to scan back further. This minimalist approach is noticeable site-wide.

Another update you might notice, is that the "Authors" page has now become an "Author" (singular) page. This change is just a reflection of my acceptance of the fact that I am the primary author of this Blog and 99% of the content on it is mine. The posts by contributors from the past are still available but are no longer actively promoted.

Finally, as far as the blog is concerned, I have updated the backend, and have noticed over time that this update has made the site a bit less stable. From time to time, I need to reboot the system to keep the site up and running. So if you stop by and get a 503 error, or something like that. It probably means that I need to reboot. Feel free to shoot me an email, and I'll get right on it. That's it for the changes to the blog for now.

In the same New Year spirit, I have also updated my personal website theme to feature a "Dark Mode." This mode is better for nighttime viewing and can be turned on at the flip of a switch. Dawn similarly has a Dark Mode that comes on automatically in the evening. Stop by https://mabogunje.net/ to check out this new feature on my website.

Now, tech updates aside, I have started on a journey that I am already very proud of. My mother gifted me a devotional last year that has me doing something I have always wanted to do: Reading my Bible Daily. I am using the devotional Open Heavens by Pastor E. A. Adeboye (Volume 25, 2025). Over the last few years, I have been getting used to using devotionals to guide my Bible study. But until now, I have only been able to manage weekly readings. However, I have been able to read this one daily (or close to daily) throughout January and thus far into February. This regular reading has seen me through Genesis, Exodus, and some of Leviticus so far. Excerpts from other books are referenced in the daily message as well.

So I'm feeling very happy with myself as the year begins. I pray that you have had a good start as well. Here's to a fulfilling 2025!