Amos 5:13

It is time for me to close the blog.

First and foremost, I am finally admitting that my life as I am living it is not
effective for things that matter most, and I need to take a calm look and ask God what changes are needed.

I have tried to respond to the special needs of my family and the needs of my parish by taking a second job that provides good health care for the former and reduces some budget pressure on the latter.

The net result is that neither my family nor my parish are well served by me as a person. I'm not available enough to either one in the personal, intangible ways that provide some of God's best stuff, and my stress annoys both family and parish. Tasks get done, errands get run, events get held. At the end of the day, most of that doesn't stand up to the question, "So what?" Blogging becomes a waste of time under such conditions.

"Seek first the kingdom of God," says Jesus, "and God will take care of the basic stuff." I need to get my priorities back in order. Too many concerns about too many things are shrivelling the fruit of the Spirit in my life.

And then there's the obvious problem of "niche." There's really not much to report about Episcopal/Anglican doings. Looking across the Episcopal/Anglican blogosphere, every day seems to be a slow news day. It's all been said. Continued commentary becomes self -... what? Self-serving? Self-deceiving? Self-absorbed? Anyway, there are facebook pages, tweets, blogs, websites and other media way out of proportion to the tiny Episcopal/Anglican presence in North America. If our action ever caught up with our words we might be dangerous.

I've met some great folks, in and out of church, by keeping up this blog. I certainly give thanks for that. Hope some good stuff came your way as a visitor here. I'll avoid the obligatory "sorry if anything hurt you," because relationships are not built or rebuilt by that kind of boilerplate. I will, however, confess that I've been the bad guy sometimes in stuff posted here.

God's peace be with you.