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Not Giving Up - Reflections on Fat Tuesday

A number of my friends and colleagues have decided to opt out of facebook over Lent... a highly laudable discipline on their part, but while I admire and will miss them over the next 46 days I will not be joining them... I hope I won't be on facebook so much, but that will not be because I'm giving it up, but because I intend doing more positive things... Including more physical exercise, more reading and giving more attention to this much neglected blog... So, throughout Lent I plan to blog daily again, but, for the most part to offer positive reflections and resources for other's reflection and worship, rather than my all-too frequent vituperative rants.
One of the consistently most popular posts on the blog over the past couple of years was a brief post at the beginning of Lent 2010 entitled "It's not just biscuits". I was always slightly puzzled by this as it was a relatively flimsy piece... For some time I thought it was because people were looking for an image of "biscuits" and indeed that seems to have been the trail of cumbs that led some to my humble table... but I only discovered this evening that many more had found me because some kind (anonymous) soul left a comment on the post in some oriental script, with the word S E X buried in the middle of it... I have since deleted the comment and we'll see if the world stops beating a path to that particular post...
But it sums up much of what is on the internet... It, on the whole hardly matches up to Paul's injunction to the Philippians:
whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Philippians 4:8 (ANIV)
But in my own small way, as part of my Lenten discipline, I'm going to think about what is true, noble, right etc in an attempt to offset (in a tiny way) all the garbage on the net. Not everything I post will be my own work - why reinvent the wheel... especially when my own attempts at "wheel-making" often turn out more than a little wonky... indeed this evening I was going to post some reflections on Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras... the Francophone version of Pancake Tuesday) based on a talk I gave to our seniors group this afternoon, when I came across this post by Shane Claiborne over at Sojourners... He says it so much better than I ever could... Take a read then work out what will help you make better music...
I hope this blog will help...
Shalom
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Virtual Methodist said…
For a more viceral response to the idea of giving up facebook as a spiritual discipline, check out Stocki at http://stocki.typepad.com/soulsurmise/2012/02/surmising-those-who-gave-up-facebook-for-lent.html
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 4:19:00 AM
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