Recently in Metablogging Category

Perhaps you have noticed that the pace of this blog is. . . well. . . let's be polite and say, "Lethargic." I've slowed down a lot--or so it seems. And yet, what has slowed down is my pace of posting and the raw, anxious gnawing that acompanied a day or two without a post. I came to the earth-shattering conclusion that most of what I had to share just wasn't all that important.

This liberating realization has yet to work its way into the rest of my life, and yet, I cannot but think that if it did, I, and those around me, would be far better off. By slowing down I have an opportunity to pick and choose amongst the inanities I would share with all. That means fewer inanities and a more patient reader population. (One must wonder about those who hang about waiting for the newest post, but one is grateful nevertheless that such maunderings have a following, no matter how small.)

So things go slowly, and I hope that I can move the slowness into matters that are far too rushed for me.

I'm back from a long hiatus stemming from a double journey at Christmastime, about which, perhaps, more later. I'll be starting up slow, but I hope to get back to speed over the next couple of days. There is much to tell and a great willingness to tell it.

And hope within a few days to have some reflections on books read, Fall in Virginia, and Samuel's theory about long distance work.

I have fallen quiet of late because I struggle with some facts of faith and life that do not bend to meet my desires. When the arrow of desire is true it pierces the heart of God; but when untrue, it flies like the boomerang to pierce one's own heart--and the rest is silence.

Not for not blogging--I simply haven't had the time and will return as soon as I can.

However, I must apologize for the fact that I am going to leave the comments boxes open (I received such a strong negative reaction last time I suggested closing them), but I am not likely to have the time to answer each of you as you deserve. I wish I did, and perhaps in the near future I shall. But please do not consider my lack of response a lack of interest. I am always interested in what any visitor may have to say; however, present circumstances (in a very, very good way) prohibit as much interaction as I used to have.

Please continue to pray for me as these circumstances continue. As I said, they are a good thing, but as you can tell stressful (not negatively) in the amount of time the changes seem to absorb.

Thank you for your understanding, your patience, and your continued visiting. I really do appreciate reader loyalty--especially as I've given you precious little reason to be loyal in recent days.

I passed through a site today--no one in St. Blogs, so don't get any notions--where I so desperately wanted to make a comment that could in no way be made as charitably as I wanted to make it. Correction is always difficult. So after attempting it five different ways, I abandoned the enterprise and went on, with this error still rankling in my head.

Now I write about it to exorcise its ghost and to wonder why I should be so concerned about the relatively minor errors of other. This after all wasn't a matter of faith or morals or even right and wrong in the religious sense--it was a matter of sensibility, taste, training, and to some extent presumption on the part of the person posting. But is it up to me to correct presumption and error? If they think Rod McKuen will be remembered and savored alongside John Keats, is that my problem to correct? If Thomas Kinkade is their artist of choice and they think that all of those worthless Vermeers in the art galleries should be replaced, should I worry? So long as they don't run an art gallery and are merely redecorating their living spaces, why should I be concerned?

And then it occurred to me as well that we all have areas where we are deeply concerned about formation and about depth and breadth and understanding. My particular weak point is the question of art, music, literature, beauty, truth, and goodness. Where someone fails in these, I have this urge to lecture, to correct, to say things that in all truth needn't be said and will not ultimately profit either party.

I would that I could learn these things before I warm up my typing fingers.

Sometimes even those things that can be said in charity need not be said. Often, silence is the better part.

Early this morning I had the thought for the post below, but so many circumstances intruded, so many things came between me and the writing, that it was almost not written. And all of that leads me to believe that there was great fear somewhere that I might be written. I don't know who it was written for or to whom the Lord wishes to speak (other than myself), but my gift to you today is this message that almost didn't make it to be written. When so much opposition is raised to something there must be within that something the potential for great good. May it be so for you.

After his success last year as "Little Boy Blue" (ballet) and "Snoopy" (tap), Samuel changed his mind about the dance classes he would take this year. We thought we were going to be down to tap. However, he decided that he wanted to continue on to jazz, which meant he had to continue ballet, he also wanted to do tap and we added acro. The net sum of this is that we cart around a bag with four different kinds of shoes to two different venues on three different nights of the week. One lass each Monday and Tuesday and two classes on Wednesday.

Last year, I simply foisted most of this off on Linda allowing her the home-school mom privilege of this extended education. But with his decision to continue, I felt that he needed his Dad's presence and support through these classes. I want him to know that if he is committed to doing it, I'm 100% behind him. So each night I spend 1-1 1/2 hours watching him as he goes through his steps. The good side of this is that I can now help him with parts of the routines that need practice. The single downside, you may have noticed, is that there is less time for blogging.

But there's another upside. Because most of a dance class consists of waiting for you turn, there is plenty of time for the observing parent with his pocket keyboard and PDA to write or record and consider old writing and transform it into new. Of recent date, I've been typing in older poetry--poetry from 1980, at present. And I have to admit to being occasionally astounded by a line or two the gleams out from the mass of rubbish that surrounds it. There is some good poetry hidden under the pretension of youth, just waiting to be dug out.

It also puts me in mind of my real strengths as a poet--and as you may have noted by now, they don't consist of "message" poetry. Where the poetry really speaks to me is where it approaches imagist in its detail and its message is ambiguous and open. That's pretty much how I live life--one large rolling and shifting mass of ambiguity. I'd like to feel bad about that, but I can't because it has served me well thus far.

Anyway. for those who have noted a shortage of content, just be aware that I have about six-to-eight hours less a week to visit with y'all. Which doesn't mean I won't visit, just that the visits will be shorter and more intense as they come.

In the meantime, please pray for Samuel's continued success. The other day at Mass we read the petitions. We received the petitions on Sunday morning, the two of us read them. After he read, I pointed out some of the finer points of punctuation and grammar and told him how to deal with them in reading. We practiced again, and he did a little better and I was satisfied. However, when we got to Mass that evening, he did his reading and we aren't talking "a little better" here, we're talking leaps and bounds--pure, clear, slow, smooth, a better reader than many of our adults. (And I am not one to give idle praise, even though I will give lot's of encouragement.) This is one of those moment when you realize that Samuel needs his audience. It is in front of an audience that he excels. The audience fires him up and gets him ready to go. And as the surfers say, he is stoked. He came back from the readings and he knew that he had hit it square on the head.

The other day Linda called me and said that while Samuel was taking one of his several "imagination breaks" in the course of the day, she heard him singing. She said that she thought it sounded familiar, and given that the usual "imagination break" consists of running around making jet or swooshing sounds, this was unusual. She went away and came back laughing and said that he was singing the Priest's part at Mass. (He's recently begun to take classes to be an alter-server.) So our present Pope may play piano and enjoy classical music, but watch out world as we unleashed the first Jazz-balletic-pianist-tapper Pope!

Prayers for Samuel's continued growth and dedication to God's purposes would be greatly appreciated.

My apologies for the relative quiet that has settled over the blog in recent days. Pressing personal correspondence, an increased volume of personal writing, continued work with the annoying difficulty of the poor definition and reclassification of Pluto, and increased work on a project for the Carmelites has led to reduced time for blogging. However, I hope to rearrange certain things to make it possible to once again resume the joy of blogging.

In the near future there will be a day when this blog as well as others organized at this main address will be down as servers are changed. Then I'll be haunting all of YOUR blogs and making snarky comments rather than confining them to my own. Won't you be the lucky ones?