Summer in the City

For the second summer in a row, I'll remain in Boston in order to pursue language study. In preparation for beginning my PhD in theology this Fall, I'm taking a course in French. Meeting twice a week during the day, I look forward to learning a new language. As this is my fourth foreign language to have studied (Latin, Spanish, and German being the others), I'm getting pretty good at learning how to read in other tongues. If only I could speak them as well!

I'll admit that I've been doing a lot of soul-searching about this blog of late. While I've not exactly tired of it, it is one more thing I feel responsible for. I don't much fancy keeping a blog that I don't update regularly, but it's hard to carve out the time to write for it. As I've gotten older, I realize that the site's "tone" has changed and I like to write reflective pieces. Yet this takes time and, sadly, time is not always something I have in abundance. 

At the moment, I've maintained this site for nearly ten years. It has recorded the evolution of one Jesuit's voice as he, in fits and starts, tried to figure out how to live out his particular vocation. As a laboratory where I learned to speak, and to write, I'll always be grateful to have had this opportunity to write for public consumption. 

Yet I am aware that much of what I want to say, to write, is not quite suited for the blogs. I'm not a pop-culture commentator and I've little interest in trying to relate Mad Men or Dancing with the Stars to theology. I'm feeling within myself, that is, a shift toward a more formal style of writing that would be better seen as article-style than as blog-entry. 

I don't quite know where I'm going with this, other than to say my blog is in limbo. I simply don't feel much urge or desire to write for it at the moment. Maybe this is a good thing, as a period of lying fallow may help to yield greater harvests in the future. Then again, maybe the blogging-field has been exhausted for me and it's time to move on to other things. 

We'll see how things go over the next few weeks. I'm excited for my course, the opportunity to get to know Boston better, and the many places I'll be playing Irish music this summer. With any luck, I'll find a renewed spirit of blogging that will appear here. If not, I beg your indulgence and patience. This has been a long and grace-filled journey of writing and I cannot dictate easily the direction it is going to take. I'm just open to the Spirit and willing to be led, or pushed, in whatever direction God might be leading me.