Looking over the posts from 2020, I see I've made only a handful of original content posts. Every other post, without exception, has been a book review. Even the book reviews, though, appear to take place in fits and starts (five in one day on average). All of that to say: I feel like this blog is most likely coming to its end.
I currently have five books to review (see the trend now?). After that, I don't suppose I'll have many others (if any). My energy for writing has been spent on the spate of books I wrote between 2014 and 2018 -- 13 by my count. I'll try to get to those before Christmas, but beyond Christmas I don't think I'd expect many new book reviews.
Why this paucity of posts?
A goodly bit of it, I think, stems from the rather large crisis of faith I've been in since early 2019. I can't say I no longer believe -- that simply isn't true. What I do believe, though, is that what I believe can't be reduced to words. In many ways, I get what Aquinas was hinting at when he said that all his writing was just straw -- or why Karl Barth ran out of theological steam to finish his Church Dogmatics. Words just don't seem to get to it. No, my crisis of faith involves the church itself. The statement I'm about to make has more to do with my personal experience than with a generalized truth: Many of her ministers simply aren't faithful to their spiritual responsibilities. Too often they seem invested with other primary commitments. In that way, I've seen a lot of spiritual malpractice over the past two years (and been the recipient of it at least once). And I'm not sure I've come out of that crisis with any clarity.
Without the clarity, I'm not sure I know what to write.
So, it's quite probable that 2021 will see the mothballing of The Little Friar. Before we come to that, watch for some upcoming book reviews. But beyond those reviews, I wouldn't expect very much here in 2021.