An Oblate Journal

A New Chapter, An Oblate Journal

 (I posted this on a new blog, An Oblate Journal, which will begin on Monday.  I'd be grateful for your thoughts and suggestions on a new chapter in my blogging adventures.)

I know of one or two bloggers who have more than one blog, sometimes three or four.  I don’t know how they do it; I can barely keep up with one.  Sometimes I really can’t keep up.  Yet, I  feel I’ve started a new chapter in life and I’d like to try to keep some sort of record of the little more than year long process that’s begun with this new turn of events.  To do that seems to call for a new blog.  I’m starting this with misgivings related to doing two blogs, but starting nonetheless.

The new chapter began when my wife and I formally submitted our applications to New Camaldoli Hermitage to join the Postulancy for Oblature there.  We’ve dithered with this decision for some time, having investigated numerous Oblate programs at monasteries near and far, hoping to find just the perfect fit.  We couldn’t find any that seemed ideal.  The tipping point came during the time I was off recovering from my shoulder replacement, when I began reading and re-reading St Romuald’s Brief Rule, posted on the New Camaldoli web site.  St. Romuald’s words began to take hold in me, “Sit in your cell as in paradise . . .” I realized that the life of simple faith he was describing struck a chord deep within.  My wife felt the same way.  I knew I wanted to become part of the Camaldolese family.  I also realized that this decision represents a moment of note for me and, since the period one is a postulant is a year, I wanted the next year to be noted in some way. 

I don’t know that I’ll have the patience and perseverance to document my reactions, experiences, during the time I spend in the postulant program – or the perseverance.  I hope I will.

For a while, if not indefinitely, I hope to keep Colorado Musing open along with this blog; I won’t be posting here daily, perhaps once or twice a week, but much more of what appears here will be original, if that’s a good thing.  One thing I wish to accomplish is to provide anyone who happens to stop by here with an idea of how the largely unknown Camaldolese spirituality, an 11^th century reform of the Benedictine order, can be lived out by a layman in the 21^st century.  Also, I’d just like to have a journal for my own benefit of what this year has been like and what difference it made. 

I hope it’s of interest to others also.