I recently began to reevaluate my rule of life, to take again a look at my ‘recipe’ for a life well ordered toward true joy and fulfillment in Heaven, beginning in this life and never-ending in the next. I began to do this near the beginning of Advent, and in light of a conversation with a friend and mentor among other friends, in which we discussed the importance of a rule of life, and sleep—something I’ve long struggled to receive in healthy moderation—was so heavily emphasized by all. The effect, as we now journey through this Christmas season, has been a renewal of mind, and an ongoing learning experience of how to live a balanced life, especially in light of the new principles (or, rather, reordering of principles and priorities in light of virtue which, as St. Augustine says, is ‘rightly ordered love’) which I have put in place. Part of this learning experience is where to place, after prayer, sleep, and work, the other essential ingredients of reading and friendship; and then where the good ingredients of things like writing go. In effect, I have not been writing as much. I am not sure if I will become accustomed to this new ordering of life ingredients in such a way that I will begin writing more, perhaps more than I did before—as often happens when one better orders one’s life; for as C. S. Lewis said: Put first things first, and you get the second things thrown in; put second things first, and you lose the first things and the second things—or if I will instead not be able to write as much as I would like, with more important things taking priority at this time. All this is to say that I shall keep this blog up, and continue to write outside of it, and continue to post those writings here; but I shall not, for the time being, have a specific schedule in which I promise to post things on certain days. I thank you for your reading this blog, and if you follow it or subscribe by email then you will get updates when I do publish a post. So again I thank you, and I pray Christmas blessings upon you and yours.
King regards,
James Imelda
jamesimelda.com 