One Year Later . . .

It has been just over a year since I last posted here. For about a month I have been drawn back into the theo-philosophical blogosphere. I rediscovered old friends and came across some new and interesting sites. I have also taken the time to ask myself why I have made this return. Before answering that question here is an update. I am now the proud father of a beautiful nine month old boy (Salem Christopher Immanuel). I have taken a parental leave from my pastoral position so that I can help out at home as well as work on a degree in spiritual care and counselling where I am focusing on the potential therapeutic insights and practices found in Soren Kierkegaard. I have given my notice at my church and so in four months time I will be unemployed and moving back to Manitoba where both our families live. As of yet I have no job lined up back in the motherland. But perhaps more than anything this past year has laid on me a deepening call to live faithfully (too much Kierkegaard perhaps). It has been a wonderful gift to be away from the church and away from any career pressures in general. It has been a wonderful gift to be in the presence of new life and all that may or may not lie ahead for him. I have been given the space to ask the simple and basic questions of life. The why and the what's the point. Why am I pastoring? Why do I continue to seek academic achievement? To what end is all my striving? And why again is it that I am striving?

So I have come to what I think is the basic Christian response to life. My life is meant to be an act of worship. There is nothing more and there is nothing greater. I also believe that if this reality is understood and accepted then it is lived as freedom. Freedom from (impoverished claims on my time and energy) and freedom to (celebrate, pray, act, be still). I believe that I have tasted some of this truth and it looks to set my free. So why oh why would I return to the blogosphere after being nudged towards such a spiritual reawakening? Am I risking a return to slumber? Am I trying to carve out my own little corner of status and recognition? Am I in effect regressing? Maybe. While I do not believe that online relationships and communities are neutral I have found over the years that this is a place where I can connect on some level with people and thoughts and actions that inspire me. I no longer have the time and commitment for long term education or the qualifications to work in the academy (which has been my historical home for inspiration). I struggle to find inspiration and challenge in the local church and community (though I need to continue to look and nurture and receive). So I find myself drawn time and again to pockets and narrow corridors of the internet where others feel compelled, called, drawn, obsessed to express their own journey and similar passions and to learn from others in whatever limited manner this medium offers. It is one place and it is a limited and flawed place but it is a place. So I am returning to IndieFaith as the same person and as a new person. Something has changed and is changing. I hope that this can be one place in my life where meaning can thrive. I hope I can post here in honest acts of worship which means to confess, to proclaim, to challenge, to be challenged and perhaps to learn, or better yet, to be given a song to sing.

Its good to be back.