Sights on the Way to Jerusalem
Looking back now at my first post of over three years ago, I can see that I’ve written hardly anything of what I originally set out to write about - my screenplays, mythology, great Christian writers, and above all the writer’s pilgrimage. Lots of other things, including my three year odyssey with St. Elizabeth, got in the way (I got the first invitation to become involved in the centenary about a month after I started this blog). And then John Paul I’s anniversary. So I wrote about those things.
Now I’m wondering a bit about the future direction of my blog, which I really love writing when I have time. A little while back I changed the title a bit (it was originally Lori’s Pilgrimage) but the pilgrimage idea remains.
It wasn’t only Dante’s idea of a pilgrimage, but a passage from C. S. Lewis, perhaps only in the back of my mind, that suggested the idea for the title. In his autobiography, Surprised by Joy, Lewis described how the experience of an unnamed longing that frequently arose in him through poetry or nature or mythology, once loomed very large in his thoughts in his adolescence and early manhood. Eventually trying to ensure and prolong those experiences — to “have it again” — became almost the main purpose of his life. Then, after he became a Christian and realized that these longings were the desire for God, the experience of God that we can never fully have in this world, his attitude toward Joy changed. They became merely “signposts”:
When we are lost in the woods, the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries “Look!” The whole party gathers around and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. “We would be at Jerusalem. “
Not, of course, that I don’t often catch myself stopping to stare at roadside objects of even less importance.
it was the last sentence that really amused me!
At any rate, I have to wonder what importance this blog really has, to me and to my readers. I often want to write on it, but my many duties frequently keep me from doing so. Those duties are more important for many reasons — not the least, earning a living, as well as religious duties, household chores, and so on.
When I do write on here, is it always a sign of the importance of the matter? Not always. Sometimes I just write on a whim, or because I’m tired of doing everything else. Since I don’t get many comments — though I apparently am getting more readers — I don’t know what about my work interests people. My main reason for continuing is the simple desire to write and to have your work reach an audience.
Still, what better description is there of what a Christian blogger does than “stopping to look at the sights on the way to Jerusalem”? This is the reason for what I wrote at the right (in About This Blog).
I hope people will continue coming along with me.
(by the way, I just noticed that with this entry, I have hit 100 posts since I started this blog! That’s an average of 33 a year, or slightly over 2.75 a month. But I have actually been publishing much more in the last few months - it was more like 1.5 a month before).
