Sshh, quiet...

Mystify us, arouse and confuse us. Shatter our illusions and plans so that we lose our way, and see neither path nor light until we have found you, where you are to be found and in your true form - in the peace of solitude, in prayer, in submission, in suffering, in succour given to another, and in flight from idle talk and worldly affairs. And, having tried all the known ways and means of pleasing you and not finding you any longer in any of them, we remain at a loss until, finally, the futility of all our efforts leads us at last to leave all to find you henceforth, you, yourself, everywhere and in all things without discrimination or reflection. For, how foolish it is, O Divine Love, not to see you in all that is good and in all creatures. Why, then, try to find you in what you are not?

Jean Pierre de Caussade: The Sacrament of the Present Moment with thanks to Inward/Outward

I've been continuing to think about the Reason for blogging, having been challenged by Gartenfische's remarkable post. It is all too easy, given our human natures, for blogging, even the best bloggers' blogging, to fall into "idle talk and worldly affairs." I know I've done it.

I'm not talking, of course, about the occasional important "off-topic" post, a heads-up about some humanitarian campaign about Tibet, or Burma, or urban deprivation or rural poverty. What I'm talking about is what St. Paul called "disputes about words" (1 Tim 6.4), and things like that.

I'm not making a case for a solemn, sanctimonious, joyless piety. I'm not trying to outlaw catblogging. I'm not complaining about a certain Panamanian Padre's dog-toys. I'm just saying that if we're blogging for something other than our own self-satisfaction, perhaps sometimes quiet is the better part. Sometimes we walk on holy ground, and we might need to take off our shoes.