What Blogging is about for me

Every now and again I get engaged with by someone who asks me why I'm not like [insert name of blogger here] and blog every day. My response is usually that unlike [use name inserted earlier] I am someone who blogs when it feels right.

When I started I bumped into someone who was, at the time, one of the leading lights in the blogosphere and they were very kind about my scribbles. We got talking and as we entered into various topics of the the day I noticed that they would scribble bits of it into their little notebook for use on the the blog later. A year on we met again and as we talked the notebook appeared again and scribbles were made. The scribbler, noticing that I was looking at them scribble as we spoke told me of the curse that blogging can bring as the need for content now obviously drove them. 'I can't hold a conversation or hear things without feeling the need for notes so that I can use anything interesting later,' they confessed and followed that with. 'In fact the blog drives me rather than me driving it. I have become its slave!'

What was interesting was that a few months later they mentioned this on their blog as they announced their decision to disappear for a while - and since then have vanished from the blogosphere (under that alias at least) apparently for good.

My latest conversation ended up with the question, 'Why don't you publish every day?' something which brought the response that, 'As just a boring cleric, what would I'd write about?' That said, I do blog every day as I publish the daily office after I have done t myself to encourage those I do vocations work (and members of our church and others with whom I have relationships) to get into the habit of a daily discipline of prayer.*

But this blog exists for me to internally dialogue with meetings, issues and other things encountered during the course of my day. I am not too concerned with looking at the trending issue and writing on them to add my voice and (says he cynically) to attract an audience for the sake of having one. Those with whom I engage, read and, converse over the issues that come up (more often than not by means other than the comments, which is sad because most are clever and funny types who should be read!) and this is what this place is.

It is a glimpse inside the addled and confused brain of an almost average dog collar. I meet someone and discuss something and then come back and reflect (usually over a brew) on the whole shebang before rushing out to fill the buffer with more stuff from the next encounter.

What bores me is the fact that so many bloggers all comment on the same stuff, albeit with their own spin, and end up being a fairly second rate version of the daily papers or the religious press. What I want is to find real people with real views who excite, challenge and even cause concern and panic (a reason one friend reads the blog just for that!).

So there we are - what you get is often a splurge of the brain and five (sometimes ten) minutes of bashing the keyboard as I lay out my encounters, pacify my frustrations and tether my demons. It's rarely pretty, frequently weird but one hundred percent me.

you're never alone with a clone!

* What makes this fun was the person who asked what the point of my blog was because, 'All you do is post the daily office!' Their response when I pointed out that there was 'much more than that in my blog' was, 'Oh, I wouldn't know - I don't generally read it!' Always good to have the informed opinion innit? Of course, were my the daily office to be the only thing I put on the blog, were it to encourage people to have a solid prayer and Bible reading practice I would still consider it to be worthwhile.

Social Media - not about preaching . . .

Not about posting Bible passages on Twitter!

Not about preaching from a one-sided pulpit.

For me, one of the greatest benefits of the social media, twittersphere, blogging world is not that we take for ourselves a platform that makes us known but that in it we find a means to make ourselves more accessible, better understood and, most importantly, accountable.

Posting on Facebook on any of the other social media sites is not about being 'down with the kids' or evangelising. In fact if the only reason you post on a social media site is to 'win' people then might I most respectfully* suggest that you stop it and go buy yourself a sandwich board and at least have some integrity.

We don't win people to Christ by posting trite stuff, nor do we do it by posting contextually isolated (and often confusing) passages in cyberspace**; we win people to Christ by making ourselves open, honest and transparent.

I post here because, as I have said many times, it is a place of reflection and internal dialogue with the added benefit of inviting others to offer correctives where they might be required and to enter into the dialogue that I might better understand, be better understood and perhaps (for those reading and especially for me) shine a light on the world of faith that is Christianity.

God became man and was found among the people He came to save. This is what blogging, twitter and social media offers us - an opportunity to be part of the people around us and to learn of their needs and to make ourselves known in the hope that the same Spirit that raised jesus from the dead, that IS in fact Jesus, who is present in us, might just shine out, like a diamond in the darkness of a mine, in the darkness of our lives.

So - a Plea - to all who engage in making themselves known across the many facets of the internet.

Do it with integrity

Think about who the focus is in your scribbles

Remember that once posted it is there for ever - even if you delete it!

Remember that Jesus and His bride, the Church, might well be judged by what you write and think before you post.

Pax

* Well, with as much respect as I can honestly garner that is!

** And to then render it in the King James version is double-folly and compounds your first silly act into something of gigantic proportions in my book!

Ebb and Flow

I have received an email relating to the blog from a lady asking me three questions:

1. How is it you appear to post lots and then so little?

2. Why don't you do more theology like the other blogs?  and

3. Why don't you nail your colours to the mast and make a stand against those with whom you disagree?

The reason that you find 'feast and famine' is quite simply a reflection of the working day and those things that occur within it. Some days I manage to get back to the palace and will reflect on those things that have occurred and the blog is part of my personal reflection process. I talk things out on the screen and leave them hanging to be considered, revisited and generally dealt with in some way. The natural ebb and flow of the daily engagements, the challenges and the funny all have the potential to find their way onto the blog.

That said, I have noticed that some of those who blog appear to have their lives totally taken up with clever things that they have sourced or sought. A conversation with a prolific blogger caused me some discomfort as I became aware that they were not engaging with me (and others) but merely seeking 'copy' for their blog. The blog is a servant of me and my ministry and (hopefully) a source of challenge and information for some of those I am engaged with in various ways, it is not my master!

The second question regarding theology is an interesting one as I think that there is a great deal of theology in what is to be found in this place. What I think the question is asking is, "Why don't you use theologyspeak?" The answer is that as one who seeks to be a theologian my task is to make the difficult concepts and issues that occur in Christian living understandable and to encourage those who stumble upon the simple concepts to make them everyday occurences. One of the courses of study I undertook challenged us to write about theological issues without the theological shorthand (eschatalogical, soterological, theodicy and the like).

A lecture I was most privileged to attended this week was full of what someone described as 'proper theology' as we considered 'kenosis, hierarchy and power and discussed the impact of this topic on eschatology and soteriology as we developed a reality which we called 'kenarchy' (a fantastic concept which disarms liberation theologians and also empowers them)'. As we were getting ready to go, one of my clergy colleagues told one of those they'd come with that, "It must have been good, didn't undertsand a word!' Now, I'm sure they were only joking, but this is what so many people assume theology is for - big words and more confusion.

When it comes to 'nailing colours to the mast, I think I have, and do. I am not prepared to trade insults for this benefits no one and serves only to polarise. I am always willing to dialogue, but not willing to be labelled, shouted at or abused for the sake of a man-made issue - that said, I am prepared to endure same for the Gospel and the name of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). I don't think anyone who has read this blog will be left in any doubt that my humour is flawed (as is the man) and my heart is set on God and His work of making disciples, coming alongside others (paraclete) and preaching the Gospel in and out of season. I don't see a place for condemning in the Christian life but then again neither do I see any call to deny that which we hold to be true (as long as it conforms with Biblical standards that is).

I used one of those word cloud applications on the blog to see what words it came up with and what it focussed on and (happilly) this is what came out the other end:

Seems about right!

I hope this answers the questions and hopefully those who pop by will understand why I don't write on the same topic areas as others and why you won't find such wonderfully worded theology that you need to lie down after readings it - I think the humour does that on its own :-)

Blogging - Do we have to say the same thing?

I did a quick straw poll of a few genres of blog yesterday and found that in each and every category (Christian, political, Evangelical, High, RC, Liberal, etc.) one of the interesting, and common, elements present in each was that many said exactly the same thing. O.K., I only looked at about fifteen from each category but it was sad that people who were political painted the same picture as all those who were of the same persuasion. Some of the Christian blogs all seemed to draw upon the news items and used them as their post with little opinion and nothing to make them theirs.

I took a look at all of the blogs that appear as recommendations on this blog and found that generally they were all very much individuals. Each had something to say about things that weren't perhaps in the news and when they were, there was some content and signs of the lights being on inside the writer's head.

Some are very straight (in a non-sexual way), some are pretty weird (in a 'should they be locked up way') and some are so tangential that they are a relief from the normal run of the mill experiences.

So, here's a request to those poor souls who visit here by choice or chance, if you're going to blog then please be you. Comment on the things that make you happy, drive you insane or won't let you sleep.

If everyone was different then we'd all be the same! (wouldn't we?)

Pax