What is in Kelvin's Head?

On not giving up social media

06/03/2014
Like Mother Ruth, I was pondering yesterday a number of people who have decided to give up social media for Lent. It strikes me as a very odd thing to do.

On the one hand, I suppose I can see that sometimes religious people feel the need to withdraw from the world for a time and simply be in a different place with less distraction. That is the essence of going on retreat. However, I can only conclude that those who are giving up social media for Lent use it for different reasons than I do. For me, Facebook and Twitter and blogging (and email, come to that, for email is social media) are ways of connecting and communicating with others. On Facebook I hear about things I want to hear about – other people’s passions, other people’s loves, other people’s lives. But they are not simply the Other, out there. Those people are part of my life too. Social media adds layers to life that I think are good, not bad and that makes me puzzled by people wanting to give that up.

I could understand someone saying that they are going to give up being bad-tempered on twitter or give up posting photographs of other people’s kittens on Facebook. Both of those seem commendable. Giving up social media entirely seems like giving up speech for 40 days in order to conquer bad temper – a strategy that one suspects might well backfire.

Here’s a few things that were part of my day on social media yesterday:
- Being fascinated by the reports of people in the USA that I know going out into the streets with their ash yesterday to offer “Ashes To Go” to anyone.
- Learning with delight, on the sly, that the choir had been talking about the subject of my Ash Wednesday sermonette (“How would you live today if tomorrow was your last?”) whilst in the pub after the Ash Wednesday service, where presumably they had gone for a sip of water.
- Making a connection with the Dean of another cathedral that I’ve not been in touch with for four or five years.
- Sharing a joke with a couple of people scattered in parts of the Scottish Episcopal Church that I think are remote (and which they probably think are Pisky Central).
- Sharing a few pictures of beautiful things I’ve spotted over the last couple of days.
- Making contact with a member of St Mary’s of a few years ago who was saying she missed Lent here and asking her what it was she missed – her answer, “Beauty from Chaos”.
Why would I want to deprive myself of any of those things? What spiritual discipline says that to miss out on any of that that is good?

My life is richer for social media. It is also diminished by those who step away from it, (yes, from me) for Lent.

I’m puzzled by this devotion and believe it, not social media, to be a temptation.
Lent, social media

10 responses to “So, let me get this right…”

Andrew Page

16/02/2013

I think you have understood if correctly (or at least as fully as it can be understood).

This just shows how confused the church has become, or how keen it is to tie itself into the proverbial knots to appease both progressives and traditionalists.

Either way, this position is both absurd and intellectually unsustainable.

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Kirstin

16/02/2013

Kelvin can I ask what submissions you are referring to, is there a new one?

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Joan H Craig

16/02/2013

I think that, once marriage law is passed, current civil partnerships can convert to marriage by filling form, etc. Don’t think they said what happens if the couple want a religious marriage – or did I miss that?
If our churches persist in saying no to marriage, wouldn’t it be better to do the blessing after they’ve converted their civil status – as in some countries where every marriage is a civil ceremony, and any religious service is done afterwards
I hope everyone has completed the most recent consultation paper

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Rhea

16/02/2013

I think that the church wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants everyone to be happy, and this is probably the best way that it knows to do this.

Is it ridiculous? Of course.

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Kelvin Holdsworth

16/02/2013

There is to be a new one. I’ve not seen it. I understand that the position that the Faith and Order Board is holding to is that “church teaching” is what Canon 31 says – that and nothing else and therefore we are doctrinally against change.

Is that not the case?

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1. kelvin
  
  16/02/2013
  
  So far as I understand it, the SEC has not moved in its position since the first response at all.
  
  The first response included this:
  Question 10: Do you agree that the law in Scotland should be changed to allow same sex marriage?
  The Canons of the Scottish Episcopal Church (Canon 31) state that the doctrine of the Church is that marriage is â€˜a physical, spiritual and mystical union of one man and one woman created by their mutual consent of heart, mind and will thereto, and as a holy and lifelong estate instituted of Godâ€™. In the light of that Canon, there is no current basis for agreeing that the law should be changed to view marriage as possible between two people of the same sex.
  
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2. Kirstin
  
  16/02/2013
  
  The SEC’s last response was in line with what the current law was, indeed still is, this consultation asks a very different question. To which the answer ‘well it isn’t legal, so we can’t say’, (I paraphrase) can’t be the answer this time, can it?
  Of course Canon 31 also states it is a “lifelong estate” but had clause 4 added at a later date to allow for divorce and remarriage.
  
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Rev David Coleman

16/02/2013

I was watching the evidence to the Westminster parliamentary committees the other day. In all these things, even from churches which are prepared to be tentatively in favour, or declining to be opposed, what is missing from all the evidence is the human experience of joy and delight that actually characterises a true and good wedding, of any combination of partners. How can we get across the compelling and converting happiness when processes take the form they do?

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Rosemary Hannah

17/02/2013

Is there any way of getting hold of the board – of ordinary church members getting hold of it and making it listen?? I mean I know my approach tends to lack in subtlety what it makes up for in directness, but then, well, it is very direct.

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Kimberly

17/02/2013

Rosemary, of all the many beautiful sentences you have written, that is the very very best.

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