Know Your Limitations

In blogging, it is important to know your limitations.

I have decided to carefully reconsider the kinds of things that I place here on the blog. I believe I have reasonable standing to comment on literature--some to comment on art, somewhat less to make informed comments on music, and almost none to comment on politics, current events, and odd notions that I cannot even begin to take seriously and which I am utterly mystified that anyone can--i.e. Is God Catholic? (How can one even begin to ask that question? What is this human tendency to put everything in a box and seal it up?)

I can comment on Carmelite Spirituality, even if much of what I say is a view still from the outside looking in. Climbing into any spirituality is the work of a lifetime and perhaps more. And I can comment on some spiritual writing and writers. So I will draw back a little and stay in the realm I am most comfortable and puzzle occasionally over these fads that sweep through the blog-world wondering how anyone with proper formation can reasonably hold some of these ideas.

Most of all, I want to encourage prayer and appreciation of God's beauty as expressed in His creation and in the cocreation of art, literature, and music. I have strayed from this for a while. I am not by nature contentious--I do not need to win, and I do not formulate lengthy and reasonable arguments. I am by nature one who exhorts others to do their very best, and in the course of exhortation learn what it is that IS best. Some need to be the intellectual leaders, some the great and giving heart. For others is the role I assume--cheerleader. I want to encourage everyone in their prayer lives, in their vocations, in loving God. I will challenge an idea or a notion here or there, one that I think ill-considered or ill-founded, but not so much to make an argument as to provoke thought from a different point of view.

No, I'm not a central player and have no real wish to be. I don't know why I do what I do, but I do know that I cannot do otherwise, and I am grateful for the opportunity to do so regularly. All writing is a form of prayer--it is my work and the thing I love greatly. It allows me to step out of myself and to learn--because in a very real sense some things do not crystallize in my head until I write about them. And even then not completely. I suppose it's indicative that I love surfing and the beach as much as I do, as I seem to be a very fluid person. My notions are liable to change three times a minute as new points of view and new data become available. That's one of the wonders of the blog-world--so many are so helpful in clearing away the cobwebs.