~ shrovetide ~

Indulge me, if you will.

See, I am fully aware that this blog is in disarray.

There are old, messy links. The “About Me” section probably hasn’t been updated since I started writing here in 2004. There is no cohesiveness, or even a steady stream of disconnected posts.

I have had all the best intentions.

For the last two years, I have made grand plans to start fresh rounds of posting in conjunction with Advent, the start of the liturgical year, and the ideas will just naturally flow from brain to fingertips to keyboard. But the season of waiting, of hoping and anticipating becomes just another season of procrastinating.

I really like the following description of the observance of Shrovetide:

The Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday are known as "Shrovetide," from an old English word "shrive," meaning "to confess," a name gotten from the tradition of going to Confession in the days before Lent started. Shrovetide is traditionally the time for "spring cleaning," and just as we clean our houses in these days in preparation for Lent, we also "clean our souls" through confession so we can enter the penitential season fresh.

Ah, spring cleaning.

That ever elusive event in our lives that finds us suddenly productive and determined, wiping away the clutter and messiness from the winter of our discontent, and leaving behind an organized space filled with comfort and margin. Spring cleaning brings with it the promises of starting fresh, and the misplaced belief that somehow all interruptions, all disorder, all concerns will be warded off, we will no longer be stretched or buried or wrung out, there will be no unnecessary demands on our time and space.

And then we have a busy, frantic day, or the allergens that accompany the changing of the seasons get the better of us, or we are asked to drop our priorities for the greater needs of the ones we love. Life interferes with our blessed content.

But maybe life doesn’t interfere, after all.

Perhaps life intervenes.

Life grabs us by the shoulders, looks us square in the eyes and says, “Look. I’m not going away. And I am never going to be neat and tidy and run according to your schedule. You can’t get rid of me, so you best learn to deal with me.”

Writing, for me, is a spiritual discipline.

It is how I process my questions, my doubts, my beliefs and my joy.

And writing publicly, in community, helps me to grow through sharing and sharpening.

This blog is a home for me. I’ve lived here for around seven years, and there is history and change and growth in the bricks and mortar of each post. But it is messy and cluttered and a bit disoriented.

So, I’m starting a new blog.

Hold up, wait a minute!

Isn’t that a bit like throwing the baby out with the bathwater? My house is messy so I’ll just have it condemned and invest in a new one? One that’s clean, and empty, and will somehow magically stay that way?!

Settle down, settle down…

I never said I’m getting rid of this blog. I need this blog. This blog is my cyber-home.

But everyone needs a sacred space, whether it’s a prayer closet, an altar by a window, a reading chair, or the cold, hard bathroom floor, we need a place to pause, and breathe, and commune with the Spirit.

My new blog will be my sacred space on the web. And, no, it is not perfect. I’m still playing around with the format, and the links and the looks. It will never be perfect, exactly the way I want it to be. But it is enough, and it is a start.

My hope is that it will be a sacred space for others, as well. And that what is produced there, through the discipline of writing about discipline, will not only inform my faith, but also my writing in this and other spaces.

Y’all come on over and join me.