blog or travelogue?

So this is putting pen to paper because I finally want to get serious about what it means to be holy.

The context is a 3 month sabbatical in Canada, starting next month for Jebs and I. We kick off with a scenic drive across the Rockies, then have fun with friends exploring Vancouver Island together, and I wind up for a month or so in Regent College library (an Anglican seminary in Vancouver).

Before all that adventure, next week we are also back at the Lee Abbey community, where I was chaplain some 25 years ago. I’m due to give five conference talks on the Beauty of Holiness, reprising and developing a sermon series I gave my congregation in Horsham earlier this year.

My hope is that the beauty of the landscape on our travels - whether tracing the familiar, majestic North Devon coastline or following spectacular routes through mountains & glaciers in British Columbia - will lend a fresh sense of wonder and grandeur to our vision of the Holy One.

Whether this turns out to be Blog or Travelogue as a result, I can’t now quite predict. Perhaps it’ll be a “travel-blog”. But I pray that friends at St. Mary’s back home, and any others who care to follow this Pilgrim’s Progress as it unfolds, may also come to share a glimpse of God’s Beauty by it.

“Come Holy Ghost our souls inspire” - and please guide these would-be holy joes upon our way …