Silence

Sometimes, the words just won't show up.

When I started this secret public journal, I planning on having something to post every week.

That was a little bit because having expectations is useful to me as a writer: if I have to produce something every week, then I will produce something every week.

And that was a little bit because having expectations is supposed to be useful to you as an audience: the rule of thumb—from magazines and newspapers to blogs and email newsletters—has always been to have a regular posting schedule so that your audience doesn’t start to think that you’ve given up and closed down.

But.

Right now, there are four or five posts, in various states of non-completion, sitting in my drafts folder. And I could sit here and try to force one to completion and send it out. But the words just aren’t coming, and the ideas aren’t being formed, and the post that I would force wouldn’t be very good at all.

So, no real post this week. I’ll pick up and try again next week.

And do you know what? That’s okay. I started this little project as a way of processing the mental health load of being a pastor in the not-really-post-pandemic world. And part of that processing is realizing that I am not here to produce content. So, when the spirit does not move, and the words do not come, and the world demands silence, I will simply bask in that silence.

Sometimes, that’s a pretty nice thing to do.