Speaking of conscience-driven meltdowns, thank you, really, for the feedback after my last post. I suppose I tend to freak out every once and again that I am not doing more with these words that I type, as if a few powerfully constructed sentences in a scarcely-read blog could change things in a broken world. You have kindly brought me back to reality: writing should be an enjoyable experience; when it ceases to be so it no longer benefits anyone. As for writing anything of great impact, it’s a bold assumption to begin with, to think that I could beget any change on my own. It’s a precarious line to walk, that bordering earnestness and arrogance. I can do nothing alone, and words are dead without a larger, nobler force behind them.  So!

So here, for now, I will write for enjoyment (mine and hopefully yours), I will write to improve my skills as a writer, and, when blessed to do so, I will write an occasional piece to challenge our comfort and rouse awareness. I know it sounds like a simple solution, like two days after this crisis of conscience I have come completely to terms with my role as a writer, and of course that is not true. It’s something that I’m sure I will continue to grope at, and probably should, because although creating should be fun, it shouldn’t be easy. Maybe that is a flawed statement; feel free to tell me so.

Anyway, today is Ash Wednesday, and in case you were wondering you can expect plenty of new posts in the weeks to come, an announcement made necessary after the Great Disaster of 2006 when I gave up blogging for Lent. This year I will not give up blogging. This year I am giving up two things which are very dear to me: music, and soda. Soda is the old standby: I will give up soda because it is my addiction and I want to be free of it.  And I will give up music because it has become my idol, and I’ve grown tired of it.  My ears and brain could use a break, and my affection could stand to be refocused.  No more listening to music on my drive to work, no more listening to music in my painting studio, no listening to music while I write in my blog.  More than soda, I am looking forward to this music-fast.  I am looking forward to quiet, to the chance to hear my own thoughts and to spend time in prayer and meditation.  From now until Easter I will be listening for something entirely different than melodies and minor keys.  What will I hear, I wonder?