For everything there is a season ...

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 

a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away ..."

For many people, last year, 2016, was a sobering time of discernment, a time of dangerous shocks and upheavals, and also a time of the breaking of already fragile friendships and alliances, both in the body politic and the ecclesial body of which, (for good or ill, who knows?) I am a member. That process seems to be continuing into a new year without any obvious signs of a let up.

Contributing to a blog has to be the most ephemeral means of communicating known to humankind (with the obvious and notoriously topical exception of 'Twitter') and it is never easy to achieve anything like a satisfactory balance between the easily manufactured outrage of the moment, and a more balanced, saner, view of what is really important in the often hysterical movement of the world's (and the Church's) 24 hour news cycle. 

My gut feeling is that it's high time to call it a day, but if, as some people are encouraging me to do, this blog is to continue in some way, inevitably it will be different, as the times themselves are different, and as the defence of a particular tradition of freedom of thought and belief calls for a more considered approach to discerning the signs of the times.