It seems my blogger holiday is turning into a blogger sabbatical. Sometimes you need a longer break than you thought.
Words pile up in my life. I take them in and pour them out. It is a strange occupation for a person whose primary spiritual practice is silence. If the words do not flow out of silence and stillness, I am not sure of their value.
We will see if/when the silence begins to bring forth fresh words.
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October 4, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Tress
Bless you
Thank you.
October 4, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Jennifer
October 4, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Kim
I guess one has to be open to the possibility the blog has run it’s course for you. A shame for us if that is indeed the case, but nothing ever stays the same…………………………………………………………………………..wait, there’s a new subject for your next blog!
October 5, 2011 at 2:11 am
Lisa
Thank you so much for your honesty. Also, I admire your integrity: that you don’t want to post something on your blog if it doesn’t come from that place of silence and stillness.
I think there is this belief, amongst bloggers, Facebookers, people on Twitter (what do you call them, tweeters, twitterers, twits?!), and others in the social media world that more is better, that you’ve got to keep posting or else you’ll lose people’s interest. Under this more-is-better belief system, words are reduced to a kind of commodity: a cash flow that has to keep on flowing…or else.
In my own case, I used to write a monthly article/newsletter for my music business and, frankly, I got burned out after awhile. I’ve reduced the newsletter to once every season, and that’s enough for me now! As for the other social media forms, I only Facebook when I really have something to say, and tweet when the spirit moves me. (Besides, people who tweet and Facebook all the time are sometimes (humorously? sarcastically?) referred to as ‘twit-faces!’)
Although I very much enjoy your blog, I completely support your decision to express your words when you feel genuinely inspired to, and when they come from that inner place. At whatever time, and in whatever form these words come out, I will look forward to them.
Thank you, once again, for honouring the stillness and silence that is too often drowned out in today’s very frantic pace.
October 5, 2011 at 5:59 am
jill
When you write, and are known as a writer, and people come to understand that part of you, it is often the white spaces between the words that speak louder than the words themselves. It’s good to let it happen.
Sometimes when it seems that you aren’t doing anything, the most is happening.
October 5, 2011 at 7:49 pm
jaqueline
Maybe it is not so much about you writing words as much as it is that the words are providing a meeting place, an interface for relationship and ideas..in other words ( ha ha ) this has become something a little beyond you…it is not just about you. It has grown to include others and has it’s own life and identity that is yours and not yours at the same time. That is what art does..it is a creation by someone, but it becomes something that gives to others and belongs to others as well.
October 6, 2011 at 8:07 am
jaqueline
” Words pile up in my life. I take them in and pour them out. It is a strange occupation for a person whose primary spiritual practice is silence.”
In the first episode of the Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell describes how athletes and dancers have to find that still centre , that it is out of that stillness that they act. Words pile up, and they go out and they are filtered through stillness and originate in stillness. All of us have to move from that place. None of our occupations are strange ones for the practice of silence. It is where all action begins. It is no different for the doer of words.
One thing I often hear from the contemplatives is that words are of no use, that words are irrelevant or inadequate ( that is my interpretation of what I hear, mind , but it is not hard to come to that interpretation ) . Our waiting on God,our stillness ought to result in expression of some form of God into the world, If it doesn’t are we in danger of making an idol out of silence itself? The world began in silence, in the brooding of the Holy Spirit over the dark and the waters…but then; there were words: “Let there be Light”.
The WORD was God and was with God and made the world.
Jesus is called the Word.
Our hearts return to silence like a weaned child rests against it’s mother. But then we are meant to wriggle from those arms when rested to go out with courage to form the beauty of God around us.
October 10, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Carlos D.
Passing through walls hurts human beings, they get sick from it,
but we have no choice.
It’s all one world. Now to the walls.
The walls are a part of you.
One either knows that, or one doesn’t; but it’s the same for everyone
except for small children. There aren’t any walls for them.
The airy sky has taken its place leaning against the wall.
It is like a prayer to what is empty.
And what is empty turns its face to us
and whispers:
“I am not empty, I am open.”
- from the poem ‘Vermeer’ by Tomas Tranströmer
With kind regards.
October 12, 2011 at 10:32 am
jaqueline
beautiful, I could feel my heart breathe easier a little
November 9, 2011 at 7:06 am
jaqueline
Carlos, recently I had the great pleasure of seeing a couple of Rene Magritte’s paintings in real life. I had always thought of him as clever, but not too impressed otherwise…
, it is the third image as you scroll down )
In real life, however the paintings have a gravity and sentiment that I did not expect. And they are beautiful as objects, the movement of the brush and paint more evident and satisfying than what one can glean from a photograph.
There was one that this stanza you shared reminds me of ….
(this is a link not the painting exactly but it is the closest i could get
http://www.mattesonart.com/la-belle-captive-magrittes-surrealism-.aspx
November 19, 2011 at 3:24 pm
Carlos D.
jaqueline: I just read today your post from november 9th. I dropped by the blog hoping to find some new words by Christopher – or to see to see if he was still on his well deserved sabbatical. In the process I checked the original ‘sabbatical’ post and saw your last comment, addressed to me, on the painter Magritte.
Yes, I also think of Magritte as a clever trickster and not a real artist – but I haven’t seen any of his paintings for real. Perhaps I’ve been too harsh on him. But that aside I can see how the the third painting down (in the link you provide) reminds you of the Tranströmer poem – of something beautiful, there in plain sight; but seldom seen seen, or not seen in that particular way.
Finding those folds and wrinkles in our world is what makes it tolerable sometimes.
Thanks for sharing the picture.
Carlos D.
November 24, 2011 at 6:17 pm
Rob
One can relate though being away in Australia and not enjoying unlimited access to the Internet is one method of blog absence.
Allowed one to be more in sync to people around one as in flesh and blood versus ones cyber friends. Another way of saying at times we must vacate the keyboard or today’s version of the pen.
Even my own blog missed the updates of our local cruising season for Alaska visitors visiting our shores and news of cruise ships around the world. I managed to place an initial update of our recent trip but ended up placing pictures on Facebook so my time went to zero on this blog.
Cheers