It’s Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras.  It’s the last day of ordinary time before Lent begins tomorrow. (For those of you confused or seeing double…this post mistakenly went up a day early…but hopefully now it’s the proper day and date…my bad..see, busy distracted me….)

So, I have been pondering and praying and stewing and thinking…and I think I’m going on a blog hiatus.  For now, I’m doing it as a Lenten exercise. I want to live and feel an intentional quiet (or, well, quieter….let’s not lose our heads).

I’ve been drifting away from the blog just because I’ve been living a bit more in the moment than I used to, or was.  Sometimes that whole “in the moment” was gladly welcomed, indeed, cultivated.  And sometimes, it, um….wasn’t.  By which I mean, it was steamrolled over me and I was just working on breathing and dealing with the fire, or meltdown, or juggling act of the minute.

But Lent arrives.  It’s the perfect gift of time and space to open up my head and heart more and more fully to those in my immediate here and now.  And to God himself, of course.  It’s time for me to pray better, or try.  To shut up and listen better.  To be more here, here.  Or there, there.

I fear feeling isolated.  I fear not being able to sort through my ponderings well enough and somehow going a little crazy.  I think by typing.  And just journaling privately doesn’t do it, it feels redundant somehow.  But I think that Lent is about letting go of fears and crutches.  This is a big one for me, a comfy chair to nestle in and think aloud, so to speak.  But I feel drawn to move away from it, for now.  Maybe for good.  Maybe not. I reserve the right to change my mind and to come back swinging.

I’ll wish each of you who might stop by a blessed Lent.  I will miss you and this little community and it’s links beyond.  But this time, now, it’s time….for now.  Maybe we’ll share another espresso soon.