On Blogging....

This blog helps me as much as it does my readers. I wrote months ago on my own blog how I meditate with a pen in my hand, as did Blessed Cardinal Newman. Some of us work out insights in writing. 

But, since August, I have seriously considered dropping that blog for three reasons.

First, as God shows me more and more of my hidden sins, those predominant faults, the more I realize I 

have no right to write about anything.

Second, the times are such that people must now make decisions and stop reading how to be perfect, and 

become perfect. One can only share so much and then it is time for readers to act.

Third, being in the Dark Night is exhausting. I cannot imagine how Mother Teresa kept going in fifty years of 

the Dark Night. Will power keeps me going...sometimes passion.

But, I cannot yet leave off the blog...not yet. I keep waiting to hear that clear voice I heard to start, stop and re-start again.

My blogging is a work of love and passion, for God and for the Church, which is all of you out there in the 

blogosphere.

But, knowing how much I am the wounded healer becomes more and more of a burden.

Today, I read this, by the Pope Emeritus:

"Redemption is not 'wellness' it is not about basking in self-indulgence; on the contrary it is a liberation from imprisonment in self-absorption. This liberation comes at a price, the anguish of the Cross."

Being a writer demands some sense of self-absorption. One must be a wordsmith, working with ideas on paper, 

on the computer, moving pieces of type around mentally in order to communicate clearly.

But, for those of us called to write, the action is part of who we are as well as what we do.

To break through the self-absorption, one must reflect and pray much, and, listen. I must daily listen to God and 

listen to His People.

My liberation from sin comes at a price. Someday, God will clearly say, "Stop writing."

That day has not come, yet.

But, I wait on orders, knowing that more of me will die when I have to give up blogging.

Today, in the Carmelite Church where I went to Mass, I saw the large modern stained-glass window of 

Blessed Titus Brandsma. A bit of comfort, as there is a window of him in the Carmelite Church I attended 

regularly the summer of 2013. It was almost as if he was saying-"No, you cannot quit yet. Keep going."

The Cross is writing in the pain of knowing I have no right to write, that my readers need to out-grow me, and 

that so many I love the most do not read this blog. I write for the absent ones as well as you.

I encourage the members of this Guild to write while the sun shines. Darkness is coming for us all soon.