Twenty or thirty years ago I would have found this a lot easier to answer than I do today.

I went to university at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal), and right from the time of first arriving in the town, I felt right at home there, and I've been trying to get back ever since.

I found a good friend there ( Read more... )

Some Protestants have been talking a lot recently about a "new monasticism" and this month a group of us have been havinfg a synchroblog on the topic -- posting blogs on the same day on the same general theme.

If you are interested you can find my contribution at Treasures old and new, with links to the posts by the other contributors.

Though the ( Read more... )

I've posted articles in my blogs about new monasticism in the past, for example at Notes from underground: Urban monasticism and Notes from underground: Abandoned places of empire. You can find others by typing "new monasticism" in the search box of this blog or my other oneMost of them haven't attracted any relevant comments, and most of the ( Read more... )

Last Friday there was a meme/quiz that asked if one had an addiction. My answer was maybe, because I occasionally seem to get addicted to ideas for a while, until the interest wears off, only to recur weeks or months or even years later. So here's still more on a theme that I seem to be addicted to at the moment ( Read more... )

I recently wrote something in orthodoxy about urban monasticism and noted that there was an urban monks tribe for bringing together people who are interested in this phenomenon. In that post I was specifically interested in Orthodox Christian manifestations of the phenomenon, but I thought it might be useful to bring together some other other manifestations ( Read more... )