Milestone posting

Stuck at home all day today, as a couple of workmen are sanding and painting the external woodwork, and need access through the house. So, I've done next Sunday's sermon, and caught up on posting the weekend blog.

I've just realised that my last posting was the thousandth on 'West of the Centre' over the past four and a half years. Add to this the 88 posts on 'Spanish Sojourn', when I did my first long locum two years ago, and 46 posts on 'Sicilian December', and that's a lot of words and pictures published since I started this retirement blog, 1642 days ago, just nine days before I came to the end of my last full time pastorate and started life as a 'voluntary pastor' (as the great 20th century missionary prophet Roland Allen called us) after retirement from stipendiary ministry. I love writing and reflecting about the many and varied experiences that come my way, and have done so on average, two days in every three. 

There's been a lot more story-telling than reflection, perhaps because it's hard to be sure what range of readers make up the 'audience' for what I write. I'm not really into website analytics. Perhaps I'm afraid of what I might learn. I know a few family and friends read this sometimes, but really the only audience I feel I want to write for is my two grand-daughters and foster grandson, none of whom are presently readers. My hope is that one day, they'll be able to answer questions such as "What was my grandfather like? What did he do when he was alive? When he was old and no longer tied down to being busy in a church parish?" Which is no doubt how my children remember growing up with me around.

So, if a possible future audience figures somewhere in my motivation, I'd better make sure that the entire content of all my different blogs has a home somewhere other than Google webspace. On paper, or in a readable digital format that won't go out of fashion or become unreadable. I wrote a book about the kind of Christian faith that has propelled my life through thick and thin. "You should get it published." several people who've read it declare. The only decent publisher I approached liked it but wasn't sure there was enough of an audience to make it a commercially viable project. Do I want to occupy my latter years with self promotion, which would be necessary, either working with a publisher or self-publishing at my own expense? No, blogging is as far as I want to go in public exposure. 

I get to write, others get to read if they're interested. I might write and think better with some reader feedback, but then again not. Healthy dialogue would be interesting indeed, but also time and energy consuming. Would it leave me enough time to muse as I'm musing now? Would I get swamped with trolls? One never knows, and I've become more risk averse as I've got older. Peace, tranquillity, space for contemplation rather than energetic thought are too precious to squander. Often the phrase from the Second Collect for Evensong crosses my mind: 'that we may pass our time in rest and quietness'. It's what I most want, and am most blessed to receive.