What I Have Learned

Blogging, and all things 'social meejya' are a new thing to me. I have been ordained a mere two years but the idea of Twittering while sitting in a theological collage lecture, desirable as that may seem, was just not a possibility. 

Blogging is another thing. Whilst around some time longer, it had the same qualities to me that journalling ones spiritual life. It was only me who didn't toddle into a prayer sesh with a notepad. 

Facebook caught me half-way through. It is a blessing and a curse, though I have stopped accepting application after application. I have no desire to manage a farm, be a pirate or pretend to own a Bugatti Veyron, though I did dabble with that for a while. I am of the old school  - pre-chat Facebook. Then you could log on, race your invisible car or blat some alien or other, accept ninety people as 'friends' although they aren't, then go home to bed. Now, you have to dive and out before someone spots you and chats. It is not that I don't want them to chat, it is more that I feel bad if don't reply to them when they start a conversation.

Anyhoo, this is me babbling. Twitter and blogging have put me into circles of people that I would never have dreamed of being amongst - an eclectic crew from all edges of whatever spectrum you have in mind. God bless them all and thanks to them for their company in all of this. I recognise the profound and valuable opportunity that this stuff has for a Christian with a mission-heart, as I hope I do. I don't regard it as an evangelistic tool per se, but certainly as a carrier of my God-virus.

Twitter is awash with the pious scrawling pious things ALL THE TIME, and it grates. Blogs are peppered with oddities which make one feel uncomforatable reading. Some make me feel that I am looking through a bathroom keyhole at shower time, and I don't think I like feeling that way. However, they are also wonderful places where people can get to know other people. 

Through Twitter and blogging in particular, I have learned to be me, the ordained me - that is, the me before but ordained, not some God-botherer with a halo. I have discovered that people actually seem to respond to who I am, not who I think I should be. We bloggers think we draw pencil-line drawings of our lives, when in fact the lines we drawn connect end to end, forming a vision of us that only those who read can identifiy, like some dot-to-dot picture. I have fast discovered that the best I can do for me and therefore for God, is to just relax and be me, infectiously, authentically me. Those who don't like can lump it or comment and argue with me (either is fine) - but may God bless this thing that we do. It actually does seem to make a small difference!