Why?

Why, that is, should anyone think of starting a new blog now? Surely the last thing the world needs is a new blog to clutter the internet with?

True, and as to the first question, I can't say I have a good answer. Perhaps I'm doing this just because I can. Perhaps there's a bit of exhibitionist in me just waiting to get loose. Or perhaps I think I have something to say. These answers go from the ridiculous to the more ridiculous.

I think a better answer is that I am truly interested in monasticism, Benedictine spirituality, and the wisdom of the desert fathers and have been moved by them, even to coming home to Rome after a life time as a Scot's Presbyterian Calvinist of the first water. I'd like to try to share the beauty of a movement that is nearly as old as the Church, even though I make no claim to any special holiness or even goodness and certainly make no claim to any deep scholarly insight into these topics.

No, this will just be an attempt to create and maintain a "web log" of thoughts and ideas as I try to work my way deeper into what it means to be, at heart, a monk who is not living in a monastery but in the world. As such, I won't try to limit myself to a narrow range of topics but will go after whatever catches my interest, always trying to do so following in the spirit of The Rule of St. Benedict. I hope you may find this amusing.