“I’m praying for you,” or “you and your family are in my prayers.” They’ve become the all-too familiar refrain of people who want to do or say something meaningful to someone in crisis, but don’t have the desire or the knowledge to actually do anything.

Admittedly, when one faces a deadly disease (or sees someone close to them go through it), there isn’t much you can actively do to get well. You can follow doctor’s orders, you can try to enjoy life, you can do any number of things to take your mind off of the impact that the disease is having, and will have on the rest of your life. For those who don’t know how to do anything else, there’s prayer.

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Since we’ve brought our new authors on board, you may have noticed some changes in the posts coming through your favorite feed reader. We’re updating more regularly, and the average post length is growing like a rogue Trapper Keeper.

In order to keep the RSS and Livejournal feeds from turning into a screen-killing torrent of word doom, we’re going to switch to syndicating summaries of the entries. You’ll have to click through to the site if you want to read the full-size posts.

Unless there’s a big a uproar, in which case we’ll think of something else.

EDIT: Okay, I lived with it for a few hours, and I can’t stand the arbitrary way the post summaries just cut off in mid-sentence. I’m going back to including the full text in the feed. I am giddy with my minuscule power.

As always, thanks for reading.

EDIT: And for putting up with my indecisiveness. Indecision. Nondecisionariness.