Stage 2, Like a Regulator

I know see why half the blogs I follow stopped being updated six months into their genesis, for I too have lost the motivation to blog. With the amount of time and thought that generally goes into it, with the other things I’d rather do, and with the difficulty I have in describing St. John and life in general through the medium of mere words, I am officially acknowledging that I am retiring this report…kind of.

Instead of using little microcosmic stories to tell of my adventures in broader terms, I will now update in another form. One that is probably more helpful to me and my original intentions (see the first post about my miserable memory and Augustine the Jerk), and more elusive to you, O reader.

Last night at work, while waiting for the last people to leave Scott Beach, I gazed out over the quiet sea to watch the burning orange sun setting over St. Thomas, reflecting its yellow and pink hues off of grey-blue clouds. There was such a tranquility about it all, I became very thoughtful and rested, and was able to finalize in my mind something I had been developing for weeks, if not months: a haiku. And then, like the slow but steady incoming of a ship into harbor, I recognized that the medium of the haiku is a wonderful way to (a) think deeply about a person, place, thing, or idea; (b) describe it in its most fundamental essence; (c) trigger my memory of such a thing later on down the road.

           

So henceforth I will (primarily) utilize haikus for the next underdetermined period of time in updated my blog. Some will be merely descriptive, reminding me of the simple things of everyday living; others will be more exploratory and evocative of the deeper truths and mysteries surrounding and inhabiting us. Some may include brief notes, longer explanations, or nothing at all.

Enough with the tomfoolery! Here is the first:

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Tides do not advance

Wave upon wave hits the shore

Saved by grace not works

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This haiku, and this haiku project, was rather inspired by a close friend and fellow blogger of mine, who captured much of the same scenario in a haiku he penned.

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Were effort success

I’d be proud, exalted…spent

‘Strive to enter rest?’

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…God, that’s deep.

(This post is dedicated to everyone who started a blog and didn’t continue it, Andrew Husen, Japan who has haikus and sushi but not Jesus, Zomboy, Paul, and the author of Hebrews, who is not Paul. Dad, you know I’ll win that debate every time!)