HELLO AGAIN

So it has been over eight years since I added anything to this blog. No, I didn’t die, I just retired. And then I started writing for my church’s devotional blog at  Joy Lutheran Church in Ocala. And then I couldn’t sign into my blog. I tried various things to get back in, but nothing worked. Recently I’ve spent a lot of time at home (had my first cataract surgery a week ago) and tried investigating how to get back in again. I finally found the clues (no thanks to Google), and here I am.

What have I been doing other than going to medical providers (which takes up a considerable amount of time)?  I set up a series of reading/study projects for myself. The first (2021-2024)was reading women authors Gail Godwin, Simone Weil, Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christe, Ngaio Marsh, P. D. James, Dorothy Gilmore, Willa Cather, Angela Thirkell. Yes, I know that’s a lot of mystery writers, but my brain needed that. In the midst of this time a tornado hit my apartment building displacing me for a time, and then there was the plague of COVID which I’ve had twice.

A second project (2021-2023)  was reading about the desert Fathers and Mother, early Christian monastics mostly living in Egypt and including Anthony, Pachomius, Paladius, John Cassian, and Evagrius. It was twenty book all together, nineteen of which I already owned.

My current project is reading medieval mystics. Why? Well, my knowledge of the middle ages is pretty limited. My theological education of the period was sketchy and most seminary training avoids even mentioning mysticism.

That’s where I have been. Until next time, which I hope won’t be eight years from now, let me leave you with a quote from a mystic, Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) “For the soul is lways afraid intil she has attained true love” (The Dialogue, 63).