I can’t believe it – this is my 500th post! (I’m not counting, but by chance I saw the ‘499’ pop up on the last one). 500 scintillating insights; 500 pieces of finely wrought prose, where ‘every phrase and every sentence is right’ (almost Eliot); 500 breathtakingly beautiful bridges and unexpectedly daring tangents.
OK, maybe the prose is moving from finely wrought to overwrought; I could also have said: 500 half-formed ideas at the end of the day.
Let’s celebrate with some decent writing, about writing itself – with one of my favourite passages from TS Eliot’s Little Gidding:
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home,
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity,
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph. And any action
Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat
Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start…
And how to celebrate and reflect for this 500th post? Well, we certainly need a magnificent bridge. The banner image you have been looking at for the last three years, at the top of each page, is a shot over New York with Hell Gate Bridge in the background. Here it is in a much better shot:
And in order to allow a little bit of self-analysis for this 500-post celebration, here is the ‘tag cloud’ from these 500 posts. Remember, this doesn’t analyse the words I have used in the writing itself, but the number of times I have chosen to tag a particular post with one of these labels. Anything that has come up twelve times makes the cloud, so the tags with the smallest fonts below represent 12 posts each, and the largest numbers of posts (as you can see below) are about: internet (35), love (37), faith (38) and freedom (44). You can send in your psychoanalytical conclusions on a postcard.
If you want to actually search for these tagged topics, see the proper and updated tag cloud in the right-hand column.
Thanks for your support over these nearly three years, your loyal and devoted reading (or your random ending up here through an accidental search or a false tap on the iPad), your occasional comments. Thanks to all those whose beautiful images I have borrowed (legally I hope, and with due accreditation, usually via creative commons). Apologies that I haven’t always had the time to enter into dialogue properly with all the comments, as they deserve.
I’ve nearly always enjoyed the thinking and writing (and choosing pictures). I’ve sometimes felt the obligation to keep going for consistency’s sake – but soon I’ve been glad that I have. I’ve always wished I had more time to ponder and shape the ideas, and the words themselves.
It’s a strange thing, ‘airing your thoughts’. Strange for being both personal and public; the inner life and the life outside; the quiet of the computer screen as you compose the blog, and the clatter of each post landing on several hundred other screens and phones around the world.
I won’t say ‘Here’s to the next 500 posts’, because I’d hate to make that kind of commitment. But I’ll keep going for the moment.
Congratulation Stephen.
Your blog is a blessing.
“Where any turn may lead to Heaven/Or any corner may hide hell/Roads shining like river uphill after rain”. Edward Thomas
Love is our beginning and our end. No more and No less.
Congratulations, Stephen! And I hope there will be many more posts, especially as it’s good to read a blog which isn’t full of denunciations and sarcasm (I do my best not to read those blogs, but sometimes I stumble onto them by accident)
I’ve only notched up just over 100 posts, and only 15 months of blogging, so I’m a comparative newbie! But I agree: airing your thoughts, and not knowing where they will end up, and what effect they may have, is strange; but along with the thinking and choosing, it’s also enjoyable and stimulating, and somehow liberating!
I also won’t say “here’s to the next 500”, but how about “here’s to the next 100″…? That modest target might keep you going!
Congratulations on your 500th post! Many of which, have offered further reflection on the part of this reader (which can only be good).
I think I’ve read about 130 posts. The highlight for me was the one about the cinema bringing back sweets after trialling healthy snacks!
Long may you continue!
Congratulations Father Stephen! Please be encouraged by the comments you’ve recieved thus far. Your posts have always been insightful and a good source of knowledge to me. Thankyou very much for giving the time and energy to share your thoghts, experience and knowledge with us all over the last three years.
I’ve enjoyed reading your insightful postings.
Keep up your good work, and thanks for your support for the Ordinariate.