There are a number of factors that play into the process of letting a blog die -- overwhelming demands of career and family, other projects taking precedence, boredom, laziness -- and all of these definitely played a role in letting this sit for most of the past year. But the biggest factor was the inherent contradiction in trying to write a blog about peace while many of the items, concepts, and events that I came across in this work made me angry and fed my own sense of inner divisiveness.
Peace has to begin within, and as I argued with conservative bloggers, watched pundits on TV, and read the Huffington Post and Mother Jones, I felt less and less peaceful. There are still big parts of me that want to fight, to judge, to make others wrong, to blame, to self-justify, to smirk smugly at those poor souls whose views don't match mine.
At the same time, the demands of becoming a professional therapist, finishing grad school, and trying to work a full time job while raising a family took precedence over my contemplative meditation practice. So as I've gotten busier and busier, I've become less and less still on the inside. The feeling of running in circles begins to feel like reality.
But the signs have been pointing me home, like the prodigal son. A couple of recent teachings of Tim Cook have been right on the money, as usual, and I'd invite you to check out the link and listen to one or two of them. (There is a time code next to each one; forward to that time to go straight to the beginning of Tim's talk).
All right, bedtime calls, but the Celtics won tonight and I'm back on the board.
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