We pulled off-highway at Saddleworth Moor, to take in, from this rugged tump, the hazy spread of Manchester. Once again dark history oppressed us. You are never free of that back story, the abused and buried children. The ones who have never been recovered. And the malignant excursionists with their leaking newspaper faces: bottles of cheap wine, tartan rug and spade. The satanic version of Coronation Street.

Step outside your car and everything changes. Wind bites. A road sign for Saddleworth has the Oldham part of it peeled like a second-degree burn, a failed graft. Limestone giving way to Millstone Grit. A rough track leading to the Pennine Way. A microclimate of low cloud, clammy air you hesitate to breathe. Rubbish pits and tyre dumps in which unwanted things cook and seethe. Mesh fence protecting pylons barnacled with humming disks, eavesdropping equipment. Cars that stop here are suspect, furtive; out of place until the rubber rots from the wheels and they sink into the peat.

Coming the other way, east, as part of his television essay, Will Alsop pulled in for a comfort break. "What Saddleworth Moor needs," he said. "is more access roads and a fancy service station." He climbs out of his high chariot, yawns, stretches. "Let's make a beautiful rural service area at this point. With fantastic food and unbelievable shops." A 24-hour destination magnet appealing to the nightbirds of the SuperCity. Who would be? Entertainers, reps. Haunted solitaries. The feral underclass populating crime encyclopedias. Gloved wheelmen in white company vans cruising a connected network of red light districts.

The idea of children being encouraged to wander around towns on their own, looking at things, seems quaint these days (and it is poignant that this should be so.) To my modern eyes, accustomed to seeing children as vulnerable beings needing round-the-clock supervision and enclosure, the I-Spy ‘redskins’ in the illustrations seem to move through a world of adult menace; it is as if the various tradespeople and mendicants they encounter are just playing roles of normality, like characters in a Hitchcock film. But the kids are in a world of adventure, junior psychogeographers seeing wonders in the detail of the city.

The parables were not earthly stories with heavenly meanings but earthy stories with heavy meanings, weighted down by an awareness of the workings of exploitation in the world of their hearers. The focus of the parables was not on a vision of the glory of the reign of God, but on the gory details of how oppression served the interests of a ruling class. Instead of reiterating the promise of God’s intervention in human affairs, they explored how human beings could respond to break the spiral of violence and cycle of poverty created by exploitation and oppression. The parable was a form of social analysis every bit as much as it was a form of theological reflection.

They have been viewed in this way because Jesus was thought to be a teacher of spiritual truth and divine wisdom. However, this view of Jesus stands in some tension with the account of his final trial and execution. If Jesus was a teacher of heavenly truths dispensed through literary gems called parables, it is difficult to understand how he could have been executed as a political subversive and crucified between two social bandits. It appears that Jerusalem elites collaborating with their Roman overlords executed Jesus because he was a threat to their economic and political interests. Unless they perceived him to be a threat, they would not have publicly degraded and humiliated him before executing him in as ignominious a way as possible.

The moneyed Goliath rose up in Liverpool
To shame and despoil the country people,
Gathering rivers together to drown
The community at Tryweryn:
Come, David, with your river stones,
And God behind your sling,
To save the hymns of Capel Celyn,
And the ballads of Bob Tai'r Felin
From being murdered by the water in the devil's dam.

Dewi, ask God in your prayers
To save your people from the Philistines;
The two Llywelyns and Glyndwr lead
Your armies to Cwm Tryweryn:
And you, great Michael of Bodiwan,
If you were in Bala now,
The empty graveyard of Capel Celyn,
Homes and crops and songs and harps would not
Be buried under the uncircumcised giant's dam.

The final HMI inspection of Ysgol Celyn (Celyn School) in 1958 described Cwm Tryweryn as 'a thoroughly Welsh speaking area with proud traditions of musical and literary culture'. In November 1956 the people of Tryweryn marched through the streets of Liverpool carrying a huge banner with the slogan 'Your homes are safe, save ours - do not drown our homes'. Some of the onlookers hurled abuse and spat at them. All but one of the Welsh MPs opposed the bill in Parliament. Even so it was passed. Cwm Tryweryn disappeared beneath the reservoir. Anger at the fate of this small community was a major factor in the growth of Welsh nationalism and the electoral successes of Plaid Cymru in the 1960s and 70s

HE ALSO TOLD THIS PARABLE to some who trusted that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt.

Two people went to church to pray, one an intellectual, the other a politician. The intellectual, standing by himself, was praying thus, "God I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, capitalists, conservatives or even like this politician. I garden, eat organic and shop fair trade."

The politician, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven but beat his chest saying, "God be merciful to me, a sinner!"

I tell you, this man went home justified rather than the intellectual; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.

On one level it's a way of conveying information: items of news, links to other websites. On another level it's a scrapbook, a means of collecting interesting quotes, pictures, sound and video files. Or it may be an easy way to keep in touch with a scattered family, distant friends: conveying mundane details which only resonate to people who have a close connection. Blogging is all these things to me. But the daily discipline of adding an entry to my website also serves a deeper spiritual purpose.

Blogs and bloggers of course get criticised for being self-possessed or exhibitionist, and putting yourself 'out there' online does carry the potential for such pitfalls. But me, I've always been a writer, always best expressed myself through the written word, and so the blog seems an ideal vehicle for me to communicate in a way I enjoy and which is in some ways most 'me'. I find it a deeply satisfying way to end each day: playing with words, clicking the keys, communicating with friends and strangers some joys, some insights freshly appreciated. The friends and strangers are important to me, but if they weren't there reading my blog I'd still find the writing fulfilling.
So, is blogging a way of praying? I recoil a little from such a naked suggestion. But if praying is a way of engaging in a spiritual quest, involving listening and creatively attempting to express what is heard and understood, then blogging can be that. It is, for me, some days.