Picture me, sitting here, long after the rest of the work-day folks have slipped away (except the young phone-bank student-workers who are calling prospective students in a separate area - when they aren't having snacks and loud conversations in the nearby kitchen nook).
I took a break from some work I'm trying to get done this afternoon, and an hour melted away with the reading of recent blog posts from you all out there. I haven't quite got the rhythm of how much time feels right to spend reading and commenting, but I'm getting better at knowing when it feels right to comment, and when I can slide on by. But I haven't been writing my own blog for a while.
I've had a couple of possible blog posts come into my head and not quite materialize. One was a rather somber post about a trial starting yesterday in Syracuse, NY, for the accused killer of a young trans woman, Teish Green. The described murder was chilling, but it was also chilling to note how little publicity this event (last November) got - likely both because the victim was trans, and because the victim and the accused were both Black. (I came across this situation through this post by Peter Toscano - who educates me in my efforts to be a GLBTQ+ ally with his witty and clear-eyed posts).
Another blog I didn't write circled around quakerblogs, and why mine isn't one, exactly. Of course, many blogs by Quakers are like any other blogs: some serious, some witty, some warm and personable. But behind the scenes, I think, is the centuries-long tradition of spiritual journals written by Quakers to do inner scrutiny and also to give guidance and support to others.
A religious tradition that's somewhat short on theology and long on individual experience lends itself to the use of spiritual journals as guidebooks. It's not the "belief" that is important, but the life and actions that are shaped by convictions and by the Light that comes from - inside? above? - somewhere both intimate and objective.
OK - that was the gist of the unwritten post. I guess it will take a while to get myself clear on a definition or description of my spiritual orientation, and it's sometimes a bit heavy going to both write or read. And it's more fun to just chat about what's happening in my world.
There's room for some of both, perhaps?
