Still here

In case anyone has missed this blog, I haven’t disappeared.

March 2008 has so far been an interesting month, and mostly for the right reasons.

I am getting married on March 29, and a few weeks ago I started a new full-time job. So I am adjusting to these two realities. I look forward to getting married very much, and I thoroughly enjoy my new job.

I have had the time to blog, I just haven’t had the energy to apply myself. I have one more Rosary Meditation for the Sorrowful Mysteries to write, and I can’t come up with anything that should see the blogosphere. I would like to get through the Glorious Mysteries for Easter, but that may not happen. I had also hoped to write Stations of the Cross Meditations.

I am (once again) sorry that certain fundamental changes in my life have interrupted the postings and development of this blog. That seems to have happened a lot since October 2007. At the very least, they can provide some hope to anyone still struggling with alcoholism or any other addiction that things do get better. It may take a while, but there is hope. Things do get better. After nearly 6 years of sobriety (with some major shocks and traumas to my system, such as a death in 2005 and a deep-seated rift in my family) I am getting married. I have found a decent paying and rewarding job. It’s just that putting the pieces together in a sober person’s new life isn’t an easy ride.

This blog may go on hiatus again. I will be moving around the beginning of April. I will be moving in with she-who-will-by-that-time be-my-wife. Not sure at this point if we will be living in her house, or somewhere else. The plan was to move into her house, but there has been some uncertainties suddenly developing regarding that. Details are unimportant but I will either be spending a lot of my time these next few weeks continuing the rehabilitation of parts of her house, or finding someplace else to live. Anyway, like last November and December, Internet service may be interrupted. My fiancee has Internet, but we will be switching to a different service provider and I am not sure how long (of even if) service will be off, it all depends on the move. So if there is very infrequent blogging over the next month, that’s why.

Once again, one great thing to do besides re-reading old posts is to read and pray about the Daily Mass Readings found in the link in the upper right. The inspired writers of the Bible are much better than I. Read them, and try to figure out how to apply them to living. That is what I did in my very early years of sobriety, and that habit lead to me writing this blog which quite often is about the Daily Mass Readings.

I am going through no small amount of stress, both the good and the bad kind. That also has taken it’s toll on the blog. When I’m not working at my new job or doing something nice with my fiancee, I am surfing all over the Internet as an escape. Perhaps an inappropriate response, but at least I didn’t return to drinking. Back in the day, I would drink because things got better, or drink because things got worse. I would drink to feel better, or drink to nurse or sustain resentments. Nice weather, bad weather, didn’t matter. And I am going through a lot of things which in the past would have driven me to drinking. It just shows that I also still have a lot to learn about alcoholism and spiritual development. The fact that I haven’t returned to drinking means that I also have learned a lot about those things, and about myself. I just have to fine tune things.One day at a time.

At any rate, like I said last Winter when I put this blog on hiatus to do a move, this blog isn’t going anywhere. It will be back and I really, really, hope that by May I can develop a regular routine.

Bear with me and pray for me, please.

Oh, one last thing, if anyone had hoped that I would blog a lot during Lent, what with this blog’s emphasis on interior conversion coinciding very nicely with this season’s focus, fear not! There is another Lent coming up later this year! There is another 40 day period on the Church calendar where you can invest in penitential practices and more deeply focus on your conversion! That period is the 40 days from the Transfiguration to the Triumph of the Cross. I’m too lazy to look up the actual dates, but I think that’s August 6 to September 15. It isn’t mentioned much by the Church, I only got the connection from some daily devotional I used to read. But when you figure that the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt. Tabor was just a few days before His final journey to Jerusalem, culminating with His Resurrection later, you have to wonder why the Church placed the Transfiguration feast and the Triumph of the Cross feast 40 days apart. Anyway, I will attempt to take the Lenten Daily Mass Readings that I missed, and blog about them then. Attempt, because I will no longer promise anything for this blog until I deliver it.

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Know someone, perhaps yourself, who might like Catholic devotionals for alcoholics? Please take a look at my books! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

One Comment

  1. Sweetie…I know just how much stress you have been under lately with all the changes in your life. I just wanted to let you (and all your blog readers) know just how much I love and admire you and am continually amazed at your strength of character, and in your continuing sobriety despite all the stresses you’ve been facing. Together, you and God, are doing some amazing things! Thank you so much for letting me be a part of that too and for sharing your life and love with me. I can’t wait to be your wife next week!

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