Writer’s block

I am a first class procrastinator.  Every morning my intention is to write at least a little, for this blog or for Journey to Wisdom.  Maybe I will publish, maybe I won’t but the goal is to just write.  The Lord know that I need the practice, my writing will not ever improve if I avoid just doing it.  But in the end I become I pillar of stony salt, just staring at the computer screen, reading other blogs and then giving up because I have already wasted enough time on the computer.  Besides, in this glorious summer time, the breezy trees are calling me to sit outside and contemplate God’s wondrous creation and take joy in my children’s play (My desktop cannot follow me outside….thank goodness!).

In fact, the longer I procrastinate the more futile this blogging becomes to me.  I can go to a number of different places and find insightful and inspired writing, sometimes on the very subject that I had on my heart and mind.  Leave these musings to those who are more qualified, let them express what you cannot.  There is more than a little truth to that I know, but I also know that I came into this through prayer, and I will stay with it until I discern a clear direction to end it.  Yet, here I am pillar of salt, with nothing to say, just staring at the computer and fearing my own inadequacy. 

In fact, it is a lot like my prayer time.  Which should tell you that over the years my prayer life has stopped and started, stopped and started, stopped and started…especially my rosary.  If you can’t get it all in don’t bother, if you can’t meditate without endless distractions (both interior and exterior) wait until you are in the right frame of mind.  And there I am pillar of salt, knowing what I ought to be doing but frozen in my inadequacy, and refusing the difficulties of breaking through it.
 
To break free from this is the trick.  And to do so I need to stop thinking that these activities will always be products of affective inspiration.  Sometimes they are the duties one offers up, because the One to whom they are given can be trusted to return so much more back.  I know that I need to break free of the fear, to break free of the need to grasp at the Spirit.

“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build.  Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does the guard keep watch.  It is vain for you to rise early and put off your rest at night, To eat bread earned by hard toil – all this God gives to his beloved in sleep.” Psalm 127 1-2

My motivation to blog is what I am finally confronted with.  Beyond the other reasons - for pageveiws, for a creative outlet, to show off my brilliance (all of which have their terrifying flip-side i.e., failure, failure and failure) - there was a call.  And it came from Him and for Him alone I continue, trusting that the words of the Psalm above.  Because if I am doing it for any other reason than I am that pillar of salt, afraid of that terrifying flip-side and unable to move.