New Year Resolutions?

2012 — the year the world ends? I sincerely hope not; there’s work to be done, and I wish anyone reading this all good faith, hope and love in the coming year.

Among many cards and messages recently, a fair few friends have asked after this blog. After four heavy years, December has been my month off blogging, aided by three realities — an extended educational development trip to India, the need to do a bit more work elsewhere, and curiosity about taking a break. That and the Day job.

Any result? This is how things are shaping up, at the start of a new year of Grace...

• Over the autumn I have put more time into Facebook, as a more interactive space in which it has been possible to explore some in depth conversations.

• I've certainly decided that having a very open policy on responding to friend requests on FB is an excellent wheeze, and much of the goof-about stuff I had been using this blog for as a kind of commonplace book, is probably better done through FaceBook. Friend me, and I will friend you, er, friend.

• I have finally disconnected from Fleet Street. When the Times paywall came in, I subscribed, mainly because someone’s got to pay for journalism and it could have been a fruitful way to go. I've let the sub go now, mainly because it was adding little value to my life. The upside was occasional pieces of themost superb journalism — Simon Barnes, I will miss you, sir. The downside was a tedious sense of being trapped at a fundamentally narrow andsuperficial party, surrounded by low grade right wing bores, stories spun up in a hurry, often lifted from the internet or agencies anyway, a dreadfully sparse and low standard of scientific, historical, educational and religious reporting. By December I noticed I could only be bothered to download the Times once a fortnight, out of a sense of duty. Why? I wondered. So I stopped. Mr Murdoch, I sucked it and saw. Now I’m out of here.

• Twitter has been my space of choice for immediate news, keeping up with events and opinions, and reportage. 

• The odd meeting or event, anything with potential news value, has proved to be well worth tweeting, and I have been using Twitter to trawl reactions and opinions all over the place. 

• If I worked at a desktop rather than being out and about so much, I might use Twitter even more, but certainly it remains my best immediate reaction and comment source, to listen as much as to talk. I use Echofon to thread conversations on iPad and iPhone.

• What is best done on this blog, however, are short comment pieces with the opportunity for follow-up conversations. As to frequency, I had been writing a piece then seeing through conversations arising from it until they dried up then sticking another on.

And in the meanwhile I'm also experimenting with a far cleaner simpler design. Some have been telling me they find the old one took ages to load, and had even produced the odd malware warning. I'd love to know reactions, especially if anyone misses any of the elements I've eliminated in the interest of de-cluttering.

That seems to me the way to go. Twice a week? Let’s see...

Media, Schmedia

This has been my year for pushing social media and learning — developing use of Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter.

Diary function and sharing snippets is probably best done by Facebook, news by Twitter, recce information about places for exploring by Foursquare.

Where does that leave the humble Blog?

As what people used to call a commonplace book, with occasional comment, it’s unbeatable. I need to invest more in it. Some of the comment threads it stimulates turn are fascinating, and it becomes a focus for a form of community. It’s brought great joy this summer to meet a few of the people whose comments I most respect and like. That and the occasional diary or policy reflection does make it worth some effort.

The key to them all is interactivity and human value. Up on my electronic watchtower three convictions have stood out this summer:

(1) There is no such thing as “Cyberspace.” Value comes from people interacting, not trips into space. The technology is hidden to most practitioners. The speed and availability of new media have implications, but the silly old idea there is a place somewhere beyond the blue called “Cyberspace” flies in the face of McLuhan’s observation that any form of human expression is a “medium.” The whole notion may just be the place memory of the obsolete commercialised information kitchen we used to call “the media.” Like the Urban Spaceman, it don’t exist.

(2) Interactivity and relationships have driven the crumbling of old media power. What contemporary media do give us, along with an invitation to waste time, is multiple small opportunities to add value to each others’ lives. Everyone is more naked now, for good or bad, but attentiveness encourages, heals and strengthens people. Facebook is more immediately effective for this than a blog.

(3) Quality stands out. Unexpectedly perhaps, old fashioned correspondent virtues of accuracy and painstaking research carry a premium. The role of professional journalists is to check facts and assure information quality, not to spin titillating or terrifying stories out of thin air. Good information sources prioritise researchers and journalists not marketing. That's why the FT and BBC have heads above water, and Murdoch doesn’t.

What we each need to work out is how much time we’re willing to invest in what particular media when...

Social Media, Church and Bishopping

Social Media Day in Oxford, organised by Sarah Meyrick and Phil Hind, from our communications team. The aim was to gather people working for the Church with an interest in communications, to scope the scene and its possiblities. I chaired it and did a short bit on blogs and bishopping. We have presentations from Dave Adams on the broader context and Tim Davies about the ways young people are using social media.

We began with the Blessed Mitch Benn on the Now Show, explaining all you need to know about social media in under a minute:

One or two soundbites stood out for me from a varied and engaging day sharing experience and possibilities — Tim pointed out the way in which social media amplify conversations going on anyway, engaging young people who are often fluent, but not literate, about the use of these media. He challenged us to try and think through the transition of all communications people from providers of the message to enablers of the message within an enriched network we could not control.

And mainly because someone asked for it, I’m also happy to stick up here the list I gave of ten ways in which blogging has enriched my own work:

1. This job involves being in a network with many people out there and one of you. May of them want to know you. They may not read what you wrote but the fact that you bothered to try is undeniable
   
   
2. Be yourself! Most of your colleagues only see you on formal occasions, or when they’re in trouble. This makes them think you’re a workaholic or policeman. You’re not, but how would they know? What you reveal in your blog adds dimensions to the way you are seen, for good or ill, usually for good unless you are a complete idiot.
   
   
3. Take the initiative! People cometimes seek your views for their own reasons, time and context, often to make up stories — like the old round robin about how many bishops believe in God. The reality is they all do. The fantasy is they all don’t. You get caught in silly crossfire. Gazump this process by publishing your own views for your own reasons, in your own time and context, to tell your story. If anyone really wants to know what you believe all the information is in the public domain. If they’re just trolling or manipulating you, you don’t have to play.
   
   
4. Local is beautiful! an intelligent acknowledgment of the genuine good you noticed in a school or parish, in your own words, is worth a hundred general thank-you emails.
   
   
5. Can have a copy of your sermon? It seems mean to say no; but it’s not the same in print. Recorded on the internet is even worse. Very very few of our sermons translate into podcasts for length, style, content or production. They just sound naff. Blog content instead. Positively, work you do in one context be more available — input from one context can be picked up off Google search by other people who weren’t there for original...
   
   
6. Learn how to write in quick English! It’s a useful skill, even for Bishops...
   
   
7. Learn the joy of obliqueness! There are delicate matters out there like bullying, which you will only say anything about in a crisis if ever, left to your own devices. If you care about them, say so before there’s a crisis going on. Gentle positive reflection that tackles the subject is likely to work better. nything hot can be left on one side for six months, then picked up for comment in a less pointed more constructive way
   
8. We are all expected to hold ourselves positively accountable to the people we serve. This is a way to help do that.
   
   
9. Connect with the world! Discuss things that matter, explain what you mean, interact with overseas colleagues, convey your attitude to things as well as your policy about it, show that you aren’t a sock puppet... Tie up ideas and challenges in real time, and develop discussions. Think, rethink, interact — there are some extraordinary people out there you’d never meet otherwise. Sitting on the Peacock Throne (if you have one) handing down stone tablets to people, none of whom are listening anyway, is not a winner.
   
   
10. If you don’t nab your space someone else will! Google yourself and weep... or not, as the case may be.

Very Sorry, Mr Casino...

Imagine your name genuinely is something weird like “MoreDollars4U Casino.” What a shame your parents didn’t give you a regular name like Scott, or Ethel. But there you are; all those years of schoolyard jibing... I guess you’re used to disappointment and indignity in the Casino household. You and little LasVegas4Free, Onlinefortunesforall, and your lovely wife Wonderbrafulofsilverdollars. I’m sure you're truly regular people. You just don’t sound like it...

Now for the final indignity.

If you leave a comment on this blog saying somehing like “Good post” I appreciate the affirmation, no really, but the brevity and disconnectedness of the comment, along with the weirdness of your name makes you sound like some spammy snake-oil marketer of goods or services of which my mother wouldn't fully approve.

Therefore from now on, such comments are quite likely to be rejected, in a possibly futile attempt to discourage Spammy snake-oil marketers out there. Sorry, Mr Casino, but there it is. Ich kann nicht anders, said Luther. Call your next kid Anders and get him to post for you... All this reminds me of the immortal Yorkshire Bard Jake Thakray:

Scribble, Scribble, Mr Gibbon

The Blogosphere is an essentially flat place, what Monty Python used to call an autonomous collective, hardly friendly to the whole idea of elites and awards, except the sort you award yourself. I have had rather ambivalent personal feelings about gongs, ever since Father Ted came unstuck over his Golden Cleric award. Nevertheless, the superior graphics, catchy red border, and unsolicited nature of the Superior Scribbler Award has subverted my anarcho-syndicalist tendencies and won my heart to this improbable enterprise. This is a free cascading tag chain of affirmation cooked up by The Scholastic Scribe. Melissa B (profile picture Left) teaches high school journalism, (Mel B? Shome mishtake?).

Melissa’s blog emanates from the legendary ghetto of Haight-Ashbury, so getting this gong feels, in itself, like a thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat at Alice’s restaurant, even without a real VW Microbus, let alone Implements of Dee-struction. The catchy logo comes complete with a quotation from Herbert Gould, elder statesman of the Beat Generation:

Diverting the internal traffic
between the Writer as Angel of Light
and the Writer as Hustler
is the scribbling child in a grown-up body,
wondering if anyone is listening.

Yep. Sounds like me.

Furthermore, what really does it for me is the joy of being awarded this gong by Bosco Peters, whose Spirituality and Liturgy Blog from NZ is one of the most thought provoking and informative reads out there — from the origins of Martinmas to Thomas Merton’s grandparents. Bosco deftly applies real knowledge and creative imagination to core anchor points of Christian praxis, with a seemingly constant stream of helpful and sometimes unique perspectives.

So, I gladly accept this prestigious honour, estabished October 2008,with grateful thanks to Bosco, my family, my parents, my colleagues, and those vital people a gushy Hollywood recipient once named in her acceptance speech, “all the people of the world, just for being themselves.”

In spite of this tagging exercise’s hippy-dippy SF roots, there are rules:

Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass The Award on to 5 most-deserving Bloggy Friends.

Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author & the name of the blog from whom he/she has received The Award.

Each Superior Scribbler must display The Award on his/her blog, and link to This Post, which explains The Award.

Each Blogger who wins The Superior Scribbler Award must visit this post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky List. That way, we'll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who receives This Prestigious Honor!

Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

All that remains, then, is to nominate “five most deserving Bloggy Friends,” or the tag chain fails... So, I suggest, in no particular order, because that would involve envelopes, the following five off my feed list (their latest is always posted in the right hand column)...

• Steve Hayes
  At a time the word “Orthodox” is being increasingly used in ludicrous ways by Churchy politicos who don’t know Orthodoxy from a horse’s, er, bottom, Steve is a real Orthodox Deacon in South Africa. There’s a tremendous depth of experience and breadth of interest here, plus thoughtful reflection from an African perspective. All this spiced with interesting book reviews, and a well developed sense of fun about resources out there, including the notorious Typealyzer, that some people have been wasting hours with this past week.
  
• Tim Norwood
  produces one of the best day-to-day Vicar blogs out there, connecting with people around his ministry. His blog draws you naturally into what he’s doing as Vicar and area dean. I’ve often recommended it to colleagues wondering what use a blog might be in their ministry, and in these days of shared ministry, it’s a good means of sharing life and work, with its joys, frustrations and occasional flashes of inspiration.
  
• David Chillingworth
  was the first bishop blog I got to know — gently humerous, slightly quizzical, personal without ego, I’ve enjoyed getting to know what +David's work is all about, in its various dimensions. Coming from an Irish background, and ministering in Scotland, sometimes gives a particularly interesting twist to his view. +David also deserves a gong for his campaign of billets doux to the housekeeper, pressurizing University of Kent authorities to allow bishops’ spouses to share bedrooms with their fellas at the Lambeth Conference, just like the students do.
  
• Anne Droid
  is a Scottish prison chaplain. Get out of Jail Free rings various bells with me, having engaged in prison ministry myself in the past. She doesn’t duck the real issues, either. I’m struck how some significant dimensions of justice and grace that get hidden away in more genteel spheres of ministry stand out clearly in hers, and it’s a guaranteed good read. It also has an excellent blogroll for those times you just want to thumb round interesting and useful material.
  
• David Keen
  is a Vicar in the West Country, who reflects on a wide variety of issues and ideas around mission, ministry and the Kingdom. He brings together concerns about Kingdom and Ministry in all sorts of interesting ways — feet firmly on the ground, but with penetrating analysis, and a strong sense of justice which has given him a campaigning edge in articulating reactions to the dreadful saga of the SPCK bookshops and the Brewer brothers.
  

Become an Instant Myers-Briggs Bore

Back in my adult education days, the most annoying person I met was, let’s call her, Rita Queen of Speed, an instant Myers-Briggs (MBTI) expert. She had spent a couple of days analysing herself and, it seemed all the world, on some ruddy workshop. Her every sentence was peppered with phrases like “Well, as an ISFJ I believe...” or “Of course St Paul was an INTJ...” Grrr...! Aaaargh!! Mummy! Show me the way to the nearest gas oven!!

Well, now we can all do an instant RQOS with a wondrous gadget called Typealyzer (h/t Steve Hayes). Feed in any blog address and it tells you its Myers-Briggs type. Instantly. Save Money on Workshops! Annoy your friends by analyzing their blogs! Nothing personally intrusive, you understand, but this tool comes complete with a pictographic analysis of your Brain at the time of writing...

So, here is this blog is this morning, according to Typealyzer:

ISTP — the Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Ach Zu! So we mechanics often like to seek fun and action in our personal lives? Really? I thought we just wasted time on our laptops.

And, just to indulge my inner RQOS Myers-Briggs Bore, here are one or two of my favourites and heroes this morning:
Steve Hayes:
Also, like this, ISTP (Mechanics)
Simon Sarmiento’s Thinking Angicans:
Also, Like this, ISTP (Mechanics)
Is a common theme emerging here?
Now for the Clincher, mon Pièce de Résistance:
Dave Walker’s Dullest Blog in the World:
Also, Like this, ISTP (Mechanics)!

Yesss!

Lights on but nobody home...

Ye blog is now officially in Mary Celeste Mode. I’m on retreat until next weekend — last year’s notes here. Phantom posts will appear every day as by magic throughout the week, but I shall be emphatically offline. Please leave comments, to which I will be delighted to respond, but only when back in the UK next weekend.
I will be praying through names on the blog comments list,
and hope to pick up a few notions to share when I get back....

Hippo Birdy 2 this

What about taking in a conference this summer, I wonder? I’m off to Chicago for the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, on the day this blog is one year old. In that time, for the record, Google Analytics tells me it’s had 103,747 views as a result of 58,446 visits from 23,838 absolutely unique visitors. These stats remind me of the Life of Brian where he tells the crowd “you’re all individuals!” and they respond “we’re all individuals!” apart from one lone voice that adds “I’m not!” As I leave the country, reflecting on all the challenges revealed at Lambeth and elsewhere, I think of the apocalyptic guff emanating from our friends in the media and elsewhere, using a brilliant bit of inspiration from the unique and very individual Dave Walker.

Blogging Lambeth

Whilst packing toothbrush and kit, I’ve been trying to work out how to blog from Lambeth. On the face of it, it’s simple; but I wonder how, remembering what this thing is and how it works. Large swathes of the conference are open, like fringe and public events. They’re easy, and the press will cover them anyway, as will various bloggers including me. I’ll post a blogging bishops feed column to collect an overview of what’s being said publicly from all sides. Blogs with no detail have no feed — but clicking should take you to them.

But what about the Indaba and Bible Study groups driving the conference?

1. Indaba demands Full Participation. It’s more important to participate than to blog. The precondition of being a reporter (which I’m not) is critical distance. Whatever happens, I can’t be part of it without ful engagement.
2. Indaba is an emergent process. the vast majority of particpants have never done this before. Good. We’re in God’s hands. It means predictions “based on last time” are least probable of all to come true. Like all cross-cultural dialogue it requires sensitive reticence in its early stages. Provisional, unfinished work has to be allowed to stand and be shared for what it is, as provisional, or you end up with speculation dressed up as conlusion which then becomes output. We may not achieve certainty this side of heaven, but if we work at it, we may achieve higher levels of clarity.
3. Indaba is driven by Trust. Some personalities think out loud in the public square, and need room to do this without anything they say being captured and pushed out on the internet.
4. Indaba requires working space. Some personalities and cultures are very reflective and process things carefully inside before bringing it to a group. It does not facilitate openness for anyone to feel they are being bugged. It is also the case that a few bishops come from parts of the world where it wold be simply dangerous to their personal security to tell tales out of school about their work and context. It’s important they feel free to be themselves and tell it like it is, with real confidence they can do so without being plastered all over the internet by some silly blogger.
5. Indaba is an expression of respect. This means radical openness — trying hard to listen to others and understand them in their own terms before pitching in one’s own reaction. Mark Twain pointed out that what makes people dumb is not what they don’t know, but what they think they know, and it’s wrong. Coming from a generally sperficial, low-respect, cynical culture doesn’t help.
6. Indaba is an expression of faith. +Ossie Swartz was reminding us in Oxford Cathedral on Saturday, God wants to turn fear and hysteria into positive energy for the kingdom. We have to decide whether we want to be undertakers, or whether we see ourselves as on the egde of a very special thing God may be doing. I have been, quite honestly, pretty amazed by the cynicism of some commentators already — “all they’re going to do is have a prayer meeting and study the Bible — what’s the point of that?” The more I think about it, the more power there is in shared listening to God in the Scriptures and in prayer. In spite of nostalgia, fear and the dangers of syncretism we live in this world, in this generation, because God has called us to do so. It may be evil and adulterous, but it always was, and it holds out possibilities as well as threats. We cannot solve problems on the level that produced them. As ever, without faith it is impossible to please God.
   
7. There’s a real world out there, far more important to God than Ecclesiastical navel gazing. This requires a sense of realism. “It’s not that the God of the Church has a mission, but the God of Mission has a Church.”
   

Blog confronts self-harm: doors open

Designer Jon Birch’s wonderful ASBO Jesus Blog, which I’ve encountered from, among others, Ian MacDonald and David Keen, opens the windows on self-harm — something we’d all rather ignore. A few years ago, having come across it bigtime in HMP Reading, I gradually tumbled to the fact that a much-respected adult friend in my parish was self-harming. There’s so much silence around this — Once people began to acknowledge what was going on, my friend found they had friends beyond embarrassment, and gradually began to recover the big picture from the grip of their need for temporary relief. There’s a sense in which this is just the tip of an iceberg — the struggle to love ourselves, commanded in the Bible. It’s a tiger we’re all struggling to ride, and the recognition of a common humanity, one way out, begins with the courageous open door offered on Jon’s blog.

Three Waymarks

1. Just for the record, wandering lonely as a cloud in Prestwood on 31 December 2007 (I should have posted pix that day) I found next spring’s first flowering daffodils. This strikes me as even sillier than the Easter Eggs which have now appeared in some shops — a sign of global warming, perhaps? Or some particular strain of daffodil that doesn’t mind cold? or are daffodils coming out everywhere?
   
   
2. Taken this morning — the last of Lucy’s and my anti-malarials from our India trip. Lucy’s grandparents/ parents all being congenitally Bristolian could tell you any day that anti-Malarials stop you getting Malarial. Which is what you get in hot places like Malayal, Indonesial, Burmal, and, or course, Indial. (Also available in Africal, Kenyal, Ugandal, Tanzanial, South Africal, Nigerial... sorry this is getting too silly.)
   
3. Allowing for two preliminary tests (now erased), this be this blog’s 200th entry.