New Baptist Kidd on the Blog

So why start blogging now? After all, I have been talking about doing so for a while. Well - this is a special time and this feels to be an auspicious moment.

I am seven weeks into a five month sabbatical and there is no doubt this has been a very special time. Since the beginning of March, nearly three months ago now, I have been moving into and through a period of very significant personal growth. The sabbatical has focused it, but I am glad to be able to note in myself that the process began some time before the sabbatical began - because, inevitably, it is easy to feel that the present experience of well-being might be no more than the glow of sabbatical freedom. I am convinced it goes deeper.

I have not been a regular writer of personal journals, but through April I felt compelled to record some of my very intense thoughts and experiences. As someone who has never greatly enjoyed writing, I shocked myself to find I had written over 50,000 words. Much of it documents my first ever experience of an eight day individually guided silent Ignatian retreat which I took at St Bueno's in North Wales (see picture). The words include: theological reflections, poems, memories, insights gained through fresh readings of scripture, experiences of prayer, etc, etc. But the desire to journal in that way has now died down and what I need is a new framework within which to record the process by which I now further process all this intensity, alongside the fresh resources I create as I read and reflect in the process of preparing documents for publication. Hence the blog.

So - over the coming weeks I shall be posting new reflections on the work I am doing day to day, and I shall be drawing back on resources gathered over the last few months. I hope there will be at least a few people out there who will want to share some of the journey with me, and I look forward to comments from others who find a resonance between their own experiences and mine.