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

11 responses to “The Pink List”

Ryan

23/10/2011

Ooh, you’re in some illustrious company – there are worse places to be than beneath John Barrowman!

Congratulations 🙂

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1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  He and I are almost the same age, Ryan. It is why we look so alike.
  
  Reply
  1. Ryan
    
    23/10/2011
    
    Made more impressive by the fact that the praepostorial look is presumably, unlike Mr Barrowman’s, all-natural 😉
    
    Reply
    1. kelvin
      
      23/10/2011
      
      Mostly natural.
      
      Reply
Rosemary Hannah

23/10/2011

Yes, I’d quite like to be under … sorry, got lost in thought there. Well done, Kelvin, and yes, more church people, please. As long as they spell your name right, that is all that maters ….

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Revd Ross Kennedy

23/10/2011

I don’t think the paper got it wrong at all. St Mary’s is Glasgow’s Cathedral (that is if we ignore the chapel by the Clyde). The C of S place was a cathedral but not any more – it hasn’t had a cathedra for hundreds of years and so is merely a parish church now (nothing wrong with that). The C of E has done away with provosts (they were the head of the cathedrals which also functioned as parish churches). The boss priest in all the
C of E cathedrals is now called the Dean. And so it should be in SEC because the title ‘provost’ is the designation accorded to the head of toon cooncils.
Yes I know we have deans in the SEC dioceses but they could be retitled as archdeacons which is what (I think) is their function.

As to the pink list…how times have changed….. years ago it would have been called the black list! (sorry!)

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1. kelvin
  
  23/10/2011
  
  Times have indeed changed, Ross. Something which is to be celebrated.
  
  I’ve no desire to be a Dean. Deans in Scotland do something quite different to what I do, and Provost described me nicely. The title of Dean is also used in secular life now too, in education, as is the term Rector.
  
  There are four cathedrals in Glasgow. St Mungo’s, St Luke’s, St Andrew’s and St Mary’s, each no doubt dearly loved by their people.
  
  Reply
Ryan

24/10/2011

Archdeacon is a great title tho, suggesting to the layperson that it involves deacons raising one eyebrow and making drily witty comments.

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chris

24/10/2011

I’d’a thunk you might have been a ‘national treasure’ by now…maybe next year. 🙂

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1. kelvin
  
  24/10/2011
  
  I’m a National Treasure round about this blog. That’ll do for now.
  
  Reply
Uncle Al

25/10/2011

I seem to recall that at Coates Hall back in the very early 1970s the student charged with providing services at the Mission Church in Dean Village was known [tongue very firmly in cheek] as the Archdeacon of the Water of Leith. A resounding title but no gaiters came with it.

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