Having caused some shock and surprise through facebook I thought I'd explain my self-enforced sabbatical from twitter, facebook and blogging. I have found that I am beginning to think in sound bites, that where I once used my blog for reflection that it has become shallow and more like an attempt to say something about nothing simply to be writing. Some of my recent posts are more like extended tweets and I don't think that is good.
I need to get to grips with finishing my dissertation; I am writing about new spiritualities and our approach to them, and don't want it to be an old hat out of date regurgitated piece of work that I know I could knock out in a few days if I had to. So I want to do some in depth reading and some research, and frankly the compulsion to check blog statistics or facebook messages is both distracting and unhelpful.
I want to get back to blogging in a way that creates discussion and not one line responses,and I want to be able to concentrate on what I write. As I begin to read and research there may be an occasional post, and I will leave the feed to facebook in place....
MORE THAN ALL OF THIS THOUGH I NEED TO RECOVER MY PRAYER LIFE FROM THE PIT IT HAS SUNK INTO. I need God, in the words of Douglas Coupland;
"My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love."
I need God more than I need facebook comments, more than blog statistics and more than a constant stream of tweets and re-tweets...
I need depth and substance to my spiritual life, and I have noticed that it was becomming increasingly shallow, so I want to swim out into the waters of Scripture and bask there for a while without the compulsion to write or tweet something clever about it. I want to grow beyond a place where I tell folk what I have eaten for dinner or when I last changed my socks,and I want to reflect on why we find the sharing of such details so compelling, are we so relationship and community impoverished that facebook becomes our community?
So I am off for a while, I might be a week or two maybe a month or two, I want to return to blogging but am not sure about the other stuff...
Thank you for your company, I hope we'll catch up soon xx
Picture from St Marys Loch in the Scottish Borders
