What the Sabbatical will Look Like
N 15 January 2010, this blog will hit a bit of a milestone: as far as electronic journals go – including an email newsletter from the pre-web days – this project will be 15 years old. I think I need to take a bit of time off. In fact, I really want to. So, following some kind of “aloha” post on the 14th, I’ll be taking a year off.
Like most Sabbaticals, there will be some overlaps: my annual posting of the Lenten liturgical propers will happen as it always does, because it is automatic. My Advent meditations will happen in the late winter and my weekly sermon notes will also happen (here and on the parish website).
But it will be a marked decrease in out put for someone who for most of the last 15 years, has put his entire midlife online (from age 30 to 45).
So why?
Well, the ironic answer is that I’m tired of putting my life online. It’s not that I mind the attention – let’s be honest – but I want to make some decisions in private. Especially, I think, my spiritual path, itself… this gets hard to point at for very long (which indicates that, to me, it is the real truth). In my honesty about my confusion, my questions, my doubts, my changes, evolutions, corners (which I think are all replicated in most lives) I’ve grown just a bit tired of the constant chant “yer doin it wrong!”. In other words, I’ve grown weary of the very game I’ve been playing. Perfect time to take a break.
So I’ll take a break, work on some projects that have become rather important to me. And – as I’ve done for 15 years – I’ll make some changes that would probably annoy a lot of you but I’ll not blog ‘em. Perhaps the lack of feedback will mean I have no correctives. But perhaps it will mean less stress.
Then again, maybe I’ll just go back to journalling in a notebook and just forget about life here…
Starting 1 January, I’ll do a series of retrospectives to see what sense I can draw from this project before moving on.
Asking your prayers…
Category: administrivia, personal
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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I’ll miss not keeping up with your spiritual journey, but I think you’re right for doing this. Blogging can take so much energy out of you, energy that can be used to do far better things.
You have my prayers,
Jim
You have them.
Huw, my dear friend, I am sorry to see you go on sabbatical, but I can understand where you’re coming from. You’re already in my prayers, and I know we’ll keep in touch. God bless you!
You can still get feedback, but from people you know in some other-than-virtual sense (or in addition to). Which is all anybody had before the InterWeb. So maybe this is a retreat to a small circle that doesn’t include the relative anonymity of the ‘net. Depending, of course, on how much/how little you choose to share with anyone at all.
You are right, of course: feed back from a trusted circle would be welcomed.
Here’s a story: when I became Orthodox and decided that being Orthodox meant that I also had to be celibate, many of my liberal friends thought “Whatever works for you…” there was one that was all “CLOSETS ARE EVIL….” but he went away, still confusing celibacy with closets. And I made some new friends – celibate Roman Catholic gay folks. This was before the Roman Church decided that Teh Gays were so Ontologically Challenged as to not even be monastics.
Anyway…
The conservative, however, were overjoyed.
I could claim naivety and say I thought they liked me. But, honestly… I *did* think that they liked me. Hell, I was getting email from famous authors and journalists. It was fun!
Then I decided I made a mistake
The liberals were like “Um… ok… whatever works…” and they are still here, reading along, trying to learn from my missteps and trying to glean what they can. An my largely ECUSA readership grew to include a few Eastern ORthodox.
The conservatives, however… just stopped talking to me (although, once in a while, I see some web-elvish, neo-con feet in my referral logs). IN this I mean the conservatives, mostly Neo-cons, who have religion as their cover. They are not so much “Denominational Traditionalists” as they are rightwingers of various stripes who have a community of faith as their beard.
These folks who seemed rather friendly when I agreed with them find me rather anathema now and while I would love to dance around an Altar with them sometime, I don’t feel the need to play their reindeer games. Having them pick a little and talk a little and pick a little more and talk a little more every time I take a step is more than a little annoying. And, like the psalmist says, “Had it have been my enemy I could have endured it. But it was you, my friend, with whom I’d eaten and worshipped.”
So a cadre of good friend whom I trust to be critical and supportive all at once would be awesome. But I don’t have any need for bullies.
Will you still use IM, or will I have to travel to chat with you?
I’ll still be in all the other places… but if you wanted to travel south more often that would be awesome!
Cool. Now if only CBP would be a little less, ummm, anal… (sigh)
Really? You’ve officially become one of those bloggers I so often make fun of … sorry to hear it man.
Perhaps. And/or Bite me.
Ha ha. Now don’t take offense. I just still have this memory of another blogger comparing himself to Bilbo Baggins getting on the ship with the elves after getting rid of the ring — all of this because wife had a baby. Sorry if I offended (I’ll still make fun of sabbatical taking bloggers, though).
Huw,
I am overwhelmed by those who wish to contact me online, so I never talked with you online.
I think that you are taking the right steps in this Sabbatical.
May you have a blessed 40 days (lent) and if you need me (from the Labyrinth) I’ll be here.
+SYMEON