As the few of you that have passed this way recently will have noticed, it’s been rather quiet around here for some time. Just three posts in over two years, in fact.
Today is Shrove Tuesday, or Fat Tuesday is you live in another part of the world. In Christian tradition, it is a day to get rid of all the types of food that will detract from the six week long fast that is (or should be) Lent. In England today is also known as Pancake Day, as making pancakes allows you to use up eggs and butter or other kinds of cooking fat. Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday begins the fast of Lent with its themes of self-examination and self-discipline.
In this digital age, I know of a number of Christians who include a fast from social media during Lent. I can understand this. Social media can become quite addictive. Notifications pop up and can be quite a distraction from the business of the Rest of Life. This especially applies to Twitter, with its 140 character exchanges that can be frustrating when there is more to say, but which also encourage quick and brief interaction.
As part of my own Lent, I have decided NOT to take a social media fast, but rather to get back to blogging myself And rather than simply click on links to others’ blogs, my discipline will be to write a post here every day, with the exceptions of Sunday and Monday (which I take as my weekly day off). Some of these may be short, others rather longer. I already have a number of things I wish to write about, but wonder what will happen if/when these are exhausted. I do not intend that the posts will be Lent reflections in the traditional sense, nor that they will be particularly related to spiritual themes (whatever those are). Many will no doubt be church-related, but I hope that there will be other topics that will find their way in from time to time.
So I invite you to visit and join me in a blogging Lent. And perhaps this corner of the Forest will become a little livelier than it has been of late. Have a good Pancake Day and then a blessed Lent.
A Tree in the Forest 