You Need a Spiritual Pilgrimage. Begin It By Shutting Up.

So... haven't been blogging much lately, eh?

This is just a short post to let you know that I have discerned a need to, at least for the present time, suspend blogging. It's not that my other priestly duties have increased dramatically (same old-same old on that front), or that I'm suddenly all tired and burned out or in some terrible personal straits (no, really no!), or that anything about blogging has suddenly become deeply unpleasant or insurmountably difficult (it is what it is).

The simple reason is that I appear to have run out of things to say. Odd, that, and I don't expect this to be a permanent state of affairs. But for the last little while, blogging has felt less like opening up the fridge and pulling out whatever container full of good food was closest to hand, and more like frantically searching through the back shelf of the pantry for something--anything!--to serve up: last year's stale Christmas cookies, five-year old tins of tuna fish, whatever.

The cupboard is bare, the peanut butter jar has been scraped of its last chunks, the well has, unpredictably and unaccountably, run dry.

So, I think I will start by calling it a day for 2014, anyhow, and see how things are in January--see if the well has filled up a bit then, as wells do.

Oddly enough, my blogging drought has not affected my book writing, talk writing, and the other duties of my state of life that require me to provide 'words on demand'. I appear to be in God's hands in these matters, and when His will requires that I come up with something to say, the 'something' is there, somehow.

For those who read the blog who know me personally and care for me, I do want to assure you that I am quite well, healthy, happy, full of energy and my usual self in all ways. And I do apologize to the many people who I know read my blog regularly and find it a source of spiritual reading and blessing in their lives. Well, if you want me to resume blogging, pray that the Holy Spirit gives me the light and grace to do so!

(I kind of suspect this is temporary. Time will tell.)

(Edited to add: The title of this post is from a meme that popped up on my FB news feed - it's a loose translation of an old desert father saying - peregrinatio est tacere - which seemed more than a little apt to the topic at hand!)

Meanwhile, a blessed Advent and Christmas to you, and know you all remain in my prayers.