More Intimately Now ...

Before James Lovelock’s extraordinary message (reproduced in yesterday’s entry) broke on Monday, I had written a personal ‘letter’ to the friends who read this weblog.

Though Lovelock’s message dwarfs my own personal situation by an incomprehensible magnitude - I am reproducing here the letter I wrote last weekend, with but minor tweaks:


Dear Friends, known and unknown,

Today, I must take a different approach to heretofore. A more personal one, in which I begin with a morsel of ‘autobiography’.

My life has been marked by sudden and immense upheavals. In one case, I was shocked to learn of my mother’s terminal illness and abruptly left one continent for another to care for her. At another point, a marriage to a woman who was and is very dear to me came to a shocking end.

Now another immense upheaval appears – at least appears – on my personal horizon. And this time, I am glad to tell you dear friends, that neither divorce, nor death, nor illness is involved.

But the processes around this abruptness are intensely difficult. Great uncertainty and insecurity are present – along with a very strong sense of meaning, purpose and guidance. And grace. Profound, profound grace. Without which I might not be standing.

Due to all of this, I have seriously considered abandoning this weblog. But I am not ready to do that – at least not yet.

However in the midst of intensity, I cannot maintain or at least justify the same level of concentration I gave this project before Christmas. Before Christmas, when my life appeared to radically shift, and in which indeed I received a ‘rejuvenating and inspiring effect of Christmas’ …

Now I could wait until a point where I can justify that same level again. But for a few days (or more), I have decided on a different approach.

That approach will take a more personal and subjectivist turn.

For instance, instead of trying to more carefully document what I see in the world – a process which is demanding – I will simply turn to an approach where very often I might just say: ‘It seems to me’.

This then is a more personal sharing: I am simply reporting what seems to me. At least, for the moment. For these things that I address with ‘it seems to me’ are things that I still hope to document in more depth some time in the future.

But for the next days at least, I might say – for example - that “It seems to me that after nearly twenty years involvement in the vast New Age movement that spreads itself particularly in the secular countries of Protestant heritage, that a kind of spirituality is distributed that is insufficient to meet world horror …”

And then say a little more, perhaps in a FRAGMENTARY way of what else 'seems to me' in this regard. So tomorrow I will start in this vein: ‘it seems to me’.

For now I wish to repeat that I regard this as an experiment, which may not succeed. The word ‘fragmentary’ was emphasised, because what may well follow are a series of soul fragments, testifying to a soul in fragments.

It may well make for less meaningful reading – particularly for those of you who do not know me. And I may still discontinue this blog altogether – at least for awhile.

I should also say that I will no longer commit to putting up an entry every weekday – though until further notice, at least, I hope to maintain something like that schedule. I also wish to apologise here to those of you who have sent me mail – some of it **very** meaningful – that I have yet to reply to. I will be in touch when things are easier.

If this brings disappointment to any, I am sorry. I had sincerely hoped to carry on in the old vein. But all is in upheaval and pain – yet also shot through with grace and meaning.

Your friend in Christ,

Roger