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It could be that nobody will read this but if so that is Okay, today I have drastically reduced my friends list on Facebook, from over 1,000 to just about 100. I have also deleted my Twitter account, I haven’t done so for attention or sympathy or to make a fuss but in order to make a space for myself to move through a significant time of change.

In a few weeks time I will move into a house on my own for the first time ever, for the first time I will choose where to place the furniture and how to set up the kitchen, I need time to do this, and want to do it prayerfully and reflectively with due attention to the workings of my heart and soul as I seek to make a space for welcome and for ministry.

I want to do the same for my new appointment, to move slowly and prayerfully without undue pressure and without the desire/ temptation to externalise my life via Social Media. Now I guess you could ask why then am I blogging this, the answer to that would be that blogging is not immediate, it does not make the same demands upon me that Social Media can if I allow my use of it to become unhealthy.

Over the last few weeks I have questioned the meaning fo friendship, and while I believe that online friendships are perfectly possible and have sustained me through some difficult times and know that some still will I now need to take a step back in order to step in to something new.

It might be that I am sending myself into the desert to prepare for a new phase of life, I certainly don’t expect moving house and getting to know a new area to be easy or straightforward in everyway so I am taking time out to prepare, to make room for growth in my innerbeing, to clear out some of my own internal chatter that is fed so often by external chatter. This maybe a Social Media Sabbatical, and it may be a permanent change, which ever it is I have not been offended by any of my former friends or followers on Social Media, I simply need this space and time to ask the questions…

Who are you O Lord, and who am I?

O, Lord, who are you? O, Lord, who am I?
Who are we together?
We are glowing fire in a burning bush.
We are master and apprentice.
We are lover and beloved.
Giving birth to a better world together.

We are artist and work in progress.
We are vine and fruitful branches.
We are partners in this mission.
We are builders of a brighter future.

We are wind swaying in treetops.
We are mother and child.
We are friends in conversation.
We are dancers who move to joyful music.

We are wide blue sea and leaping dolphin.
We are warm spring sun and growing seeds.
We are poet and living poetry.
We are singers who fill the earth with harmony.

Brian D. McLaren – Naked Spirituality