BEYOND TECHNOBABBLING

Oh dear... for reasons I'm still fathoming, I've finally given in to Twitter. You'll find mine (http://twitter.com/simonbarrow) under my profile in the column on the right. Is this a useful new tool, or is the world being buried in meaningless technobabble? As I wrote last month, the jury is out. Unless you're some kind of public figure, a human rights lawyer, or you're being tagged to keep the rest of the community safe, telling people what you are doing every moment of the day really is gratuitous (in the modern, pejorative sense of that word). But the idea of micro-blogging ("less is more", "let them have clips", "to be interesting be interested") has more going for it. I think. We'll see.

Meanwhile, my delightful father-in-law, Willard Roth, has given me a signed copy of friend Daniel P. Schrock's charming book Prayer Practices for Terrifically Busy People for my 50th birthday. It's a little worrying to be thought of in that category, since there is no real excuse at this stage in life. You are most likely to be taking too much on, taking youself too seriously, failing to combat disorganisation (cough!) or filling the void. But that's the point, I suppose. And it is the maelstrom around us that sucks us in, if we allow it. The point is to filter out the twaddle from the twitter - if there's any difference. Gratifyingly, Dan's exercises all take about 30 times longer than micro-blogging. That's about 15 minutes.

I shall conclude by repeating that famous story about Archbishop Michael Ramsey. Asked by an interviewer how long he spent praying each day, he replied, "about two minutes... but it takes several hours to prepare for those minutes."