It has been a long time between blogging drinks so to speak. And as I sit at my PC trying to pass the time until the midnight mass begins, I cast my thoughts back to blogging.

When I first headed off to college, I would spend as many as four hours every Sunday night (after church) composing a somewhat eloquent, but generally wishy-washy with some pathetic attempts at and often totally missing the point of topical humour, styled weekly newsletter THING, letting everyone on my email list know what I had been up too in the previous seven days. What was it about my life, my existence away from those whom I loved and loved me, that I thought that they’d want to know every detail about my existence? From what I was eating, to what I was thinking, to what I was learning to what I was reading to what paint I was watching drying to what (zzzzzzzzzz)..... I even recall one newsletter than contained a 1000 word journicological exploration of my fear of spiders, whilst recalling an afternoons activity of trying to convince (by begging, pleading and bribery) a rather larger and hairy – and lets face, evil looking – huntsman spider – or the Eastern states equivalent – to leave my one bedroom flat, before succumbing to fear and wasting not only my portion of valuable ozone(sorry Mr Gore), but also half a container of bug spray to ensure the continuation of my, thin at best, functioning metal capacity.....you see, I even did it again – thinking that you’d perhaps be interested....

What is it about blogging? What does it say about the blogger? What does it say about you (and me as I write this, and as I read another blog before heading over to mine again, to find that it was still there even after 15 months of neglect) the blog reader? Why do we want to blog? Why do we want to read blogs? What does it say about our abilities for genuine communication? Is it perhaps that there is no one announcing my activities to the world on a daily basis? Do I perhaps sometimes feel that no one knows and appreciates what I do, or what I think? Do I sometimes feel like that old saying, “Doing a good dead around here is like taking a leak in a wetsuit – it makes you feel all warm, yet know one notices”? I’ll admit that in the past I have had those feelings – and now....not so much.

And of course that got me thinking about Angels....(did you see the leap there? – it would have made Evil Keneval proud!!). I love that scene in Luke’s Gospel (Lk 2:8-20) where the Shepherd’s are out in the fields washing their socks by night – sorry – watching their flocks by night, when all of a sudden, God’s bloggers, his Facebook mini-feed – the company of Angels – appear on scene to announce what God has been doing, and what God is doing, and to whom he is doing it....

‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’

The creator of the universe chooses to announce what he has been doing, not to the media, not to the society pages, not the King of Judea, but to the lowliest of the low – those who had to live outside of village life, outside of acceptable society – no internet access for them – the Shepherds. The first to know of the birth of Jesus (in Luke’s account) and what the birth of Jesus was to mean to the world was the Shepherds. It was those who were overlooked as people – those who were forgotten by the government, and by the ‘haves’ of society – those whose lives had fallen through the cracks, who God blogged at first of all. As a Christian this Christmas season – how many Shepherd’s have we announced the “good news of great joy that will be for ALL THE PEOPLE that today...a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” this season?

Speaking and enacting the Good News to those whom society has forgotten, is something that I really need to work on.

From me to you, via my resurrected blog – May the remembrance and celebration of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem, renew in all our hearts a desire to see joy, hope, peace, love and justice reign in our communities via the bringing about of God’s kingdom here on earth.”

Shalom and Merry Christmas.