It’s been half a year since I’ve posted anything here. With the rise of Facebook and Twitter, I found that most of what I wanted to say was easier to say on those platforms, and because of that I spent most of time there. But after a few weeks of vacation this summer and a chance to think about what was next for this blog, I’m planning on returning to it.

I’ve been reading with increasing alarm about the way that Facebook’s newsfeed was able to be manipulated by advertisers – both the sort you’d typically imagine and now various nation states using the feed to spread false news stories and to inflame already difficult situations. Given my desire to find a way to demonstrate that, if we are serious about the Gospel and about our relationship to God, we must be in the strongest relationship possible with our neighbor, it’s hard to see how the way social media and micro-blogging services work today are helping.

Actually – it’s worse. There are multiple studies that are showing that people who are over-consuming social media tend to struggle with a sense of alienation and their own self-worth more than people who try to stay away.

So, it’s back to the past for me. Back to using my own blog. It will still post automatically to Twitter and Facebook, it will still be automatically linked to our diocesan website, but the content will be here… in all its wonderful glory. Heh.

I’m heading out mid-week to the 2017 Fall House of Bishop’s meeting in Fairbanks Alaska. I’m planning on posting reflections, pictures, etc. here. Hopefully that will be enough to invite me back into a regular discipline of posting again.