Writing to be more grateful and thus, more graceful...

I haven’t written a blog entry for over a month. I think it’s been the longest hiatus from writing I’ve taken since I started blogging back in 2005. Unlike others who take a break from writing to pursue a project or to give something up for lent or to consecrate themselves more fully to higher priorities, this exodus was more of an ebbing away that an abrupt departure or a premeditated decision. I think it was last week that I was reflecting upon my life (something I am used to doing more frequently than I have in recent weeks) and it struck me that I have abandoned this discipline/therapy almost entirely.

I’m amazed how things that feed your spirit are often the first pieces of cargo to go overboard in life. In an effort to survive, you keep the draining disciplines and dispose of the nourishing disciplines.

My nourishing, life-giving patterns include:

1. A date night with my wife each week.

2. Playing with my children and resurrecting my inner child.

3. Watching an occasional inspiring movie that breathes story into my story.

4. Getting out of buildings and into nature, out of conversation and into activity.

5. Getting off the internet and enjoying actual friendships around an actual fire.

6. Reading books instead of email, status updates and memos. (Books and Faces instead of Facebook)

7. Getting into the car and driving to a new and undiscovered location for the fun of it.

8. Going to lunch with my daughters and engaging their friends at school.

9. Saying hi to people in the community with vim, vigor and value.

10. Spending time in the Word and Prayer just to be with my Savior.

The last one may be the most critical piece of cargo that goes overboard. When you separate from your Savior, you separate from the one who saves you once and for all spiritually, but also the one who saves you each and every (I’m aware of the redundancy of that statement) day of your life. If without Him I can do nothing as it says in John 15, then nothing is precisely what I become as I divorce myself from his salvific heart.

And today as I navigate a “reentry into the blogosphere” today, I find myself grateful for writing and it’s ability to be my “silent counselor” listening to my untethered, disjointed gibberish and absorbing my scribbles and scrawlings.

On this day, I write to become grateful in hopes of becoming graceful. I’m glad to be back.