REFLECTING, REDACTING, REDIRECTING

When I was in Exeter recently, a friend asked me why I had been so silent on FaithInSociety of late - and, to be honest, for about the past 12 months and more, since my 'post' rate was only about one-a-week last year, after a fertile period between 2005-8. The answer, of course, is "the distraction of life, and related matters." Well, that and Twitter, where I may be regularly if fleetingly found, my work blog on Ekklesia, my regular column, together with various other national and international media interventions. Oh, yes, and Facebook, more for the networking, and Only Just Offside (for therapy). Put that together with other work and domestic commitments, reading and bits of recreation and you can see why less really is more. Cyberspace can become an unhelpfully all-encompassing reality if you allow it, especially if, as with Ekklesia, it is the basic coinage for what you do.

From a purely technical point of view (though these things are never "purely technical" if you have any level of self- and other-awareness), the issue is how to consolidate. I don't really believe in cross-posting, and certainly not in using tweets to update your Facebook status. Either use each medium for what it's best at, and originate originally, or don't. That said, I have been wondering whether to roll this space into my Ekklesia blog. But that is more issue-based or researchy (or would be, if I wrote more about research issues), whereas this offers an opportunity to be more personal, reflective and theological, and to have the odd conversation (sic!). So I think I will try to use them both in those distinct ways. But with the proviso that (as I often say) if you start to worry about "not posting enough" then something is seriously wrong in terms of life balance. Writing, in whatever form, and to whatever audience (or lack of audience) ought to be an effervescence not a chore, and other things in life ought to take priority. So if I'm here I'm here, and if I'm not I'm not, I guess.

All of which takes me to Lent, which is impending, and which, as I observed in my recent sermon The world's storms waiting to be stilled, "is a period within the Christian tradition which is all about reassessment and renegotiation. What and who are we living for? Where and with whom is the true value of life to be found? What shall we keep hold of and what shall we let go of? What is it that sustains us in the face of want, or of excess?"

Much more important than "am I blogging enough / not enough /too much." Though I see that David Keen over on St Aidan to Abbey Manor has just started a useful conversation, entitled That'll Do, on giving up his blog for Lent. So, yup, that's St Aidan of Lindisfarne in the picture - thank you, David.