No One Knows this Blog Exists

This afternoon I remembered that I had a blog. I suddenly remembered that this blog existed. I could not remember what it was called. Thank heavens that Google remembered! I remembered that I don't really like blogging. I remembered that I am terrible at blogging. I remember that my laziness and self-consciousness are why I am terrible at blogging. I remembered that I've started, like five blogs, which were all utterly failed ventures of my own vanity and because I am lazy and self-conscious and the internet is a cruel mistress. I remembered that I wanted to be a lawyer, a priest, a poet, then a priest. I remembered that I thought about being a poet long after I became a priest. I remembered that I needed to say my prayers before I left work. And more prayers after work. I remembered that no one knows this blog exists.

Pray for Us

Like many people, I am lately exhausted. By all of the things. By all of those things. I don’t mean to be cryptic; I just don’t want to wind up blathering in a ditch here. Let’s just say I seem to watch a lot more cable news than I used to but not for enjoyment so much.

But because I have had the kind of spiritual experiences that have lead me to believe that I can control less than I think I can control and much less than I desire to control, I’ve reflected that the one thing I can do, a very peculiar thing over which I do have control is tending to my own spiritual well-being that I might be of better service to my neighbor. As I have counseled many: one can always pray.

Now and at the hour of our death

So on January 20th (Inauguration Day, though that may have been coincidental. Or not. Whatever.), I made a loose commitment to renew my praying the rosary. I have prayed the rosary (of the 5-decade, Dominican, Roman Catholic, Hail, Mary, full of grace variety) sporadically for nearly twenty years. About ten years ago I began making them. You can actually find rosary making kits online, if you’re looking for such a craft. I wasn't some solemn or prayerful oath. I just decided to start praying the rosary more regularly, and that turned into praying it daily for at least 90 days straight. And so I renewed regular use of my rosary.

Why the rosary? I do not know from where my particular devotion to Mary came. My religious upbringing in the Episcopal Church was not particularly “catholic” (though it wasn’t especially protestant either). There is a profound beauty and truth to Mary, to her participation in the gospel, the Incarnation, and salvation history. So it isn’t absurd that I or anyone would ascribe to her a saintly devotion. I’ve never been able to explain it very well (Recently a clergy colleague did a great job of explaining his perspective on the subject). But at the same time, I’ve never been uncomfortable not being able to explain it. 

When I was in college, I spent an entire month at a Benedictine monastery in Michigan. Vespers was followed by 30 minutes of meditation, which for me at the time, was intimidating. The main chapel had a beautiful Mary Chapel and a small collection of rosaries. I asked a brother about the rosary, and he gave me a cursory explanation and told me to pray. So I did.

When it comes to prayer, in general, I’ve felt at times I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none. I’ve dabbled in this and that and in fits and starts. I’ve dabbled in various practices. But the rosary remains a consistent part of my spiritual life. I have often referred to it as a spiritual tether that has helped to bind me. At times from falling apart, and always to Jesus.

Chain rosary with amethyst and pearls

A large part of my devotion to Mary is that Mary, I believe, calls me to pray.

Mary herself prays. She’s an example of a prayerful person. Mary prays.

She prays exuberantly in song, with praise for God.

She prays quiet, meditative prays. Prayer without words.

She questions and ponders and wrestles and mulls things over.

Mary prays with wonder and awe.

And, if I’m any judge of humanity, I would strongly believe that she prayed a great deal for her son who likely gave her fits and kept her up at night sick with worry.

I think of Mary standing at the foot of the cross, that she had courage and inspiration that none of us could likely have mustered to stand there at that moment. The prayers she must have prayed.

I think of Mary whose ministry among the apostles continued after Jesus' resurrection, how she must have cared for the early church as she did her own son. The praying she must have done.

I think of Mary, who undoubtedly is among the communion of saints, that great cloud of witnesses who stand near to Christ in heaven making continual intercession on our behalf.

This is why I kindle a devotion to her, as an example. Mary prays, and so I pray. I try, at least. I try.

My use of the rosary has led me to make intentional intercession for people. Very often I pray the rosary offering extra prayers for people I know, for friends, for colleagues in ministry. Often I pray what is called a novena. Each day for nine days straight I will pray the rosary remembering a particular person with special intentions and intercessions. Often at the end of that novena, I will give them that rosary to the person for whom I’ve prayed. My own way of binding them with the love and mercy of Jesus.

One of the principal aspects of my vocation is that I am meant to pray in all manner of ways and in all sorts of circumstances. It's academic. Really, I am mostly meant to pray for others. Often I pray with a fervent hope that somewhere someone might be praying for me and with me.

The First Post or Who is Olaf Montelban?

Who is Olaf Montelban indeed? It's complicated. And kind of anticlimactic in the telling. Let's skip it for now. The suspense is better than the knowing.

This is my blog. Or should I say, this is another blog of mine*

Topics will include but not be limited to and not necessarily in this order:

- West Bromwich Albion Football Club

- English Premier League Soccer

- Major League Soccer

- National Women's Soccer League

- International Soccer

- Knitting

- Politics, Democracy, and America

- Spirituality and Faith and Mindfulness

- Religion and Religious identity

- Scripture and the good news of Jesus

- Poetry and despair

- Soccer and despair

- Hope and despair

In general, this blog will be simply my own (representing no person or institution) observations, unqualified opinions, blatherings, hyperbole. All in a sporadically updated blog that no one will read and which I will eventually neglect to the point of utter abandonment to the care of the interwebs. Most good bloggers I know are cooler and smarter than me which breeds occasional resentment on my part, so I'm not going to try too hard.. Also, blogs are a lot of damned work. And I am lazy and easily distracted. And I knit a lot, and that business takes time.

If I tried to condense all the justification for starting this blog and tried to reconcile them with many reasons why not to start a blog it would be this:

This blog is a vain attempt to deconstruct deep seated feelings that I’ve got to be smart, funny, and inoffensive all my waking hours, but instead to be honest and sincere and vulnerable about things for which I care deeply. I’m doing this to break down the cynicism of my own ego—and if you’re reading this, you can easily tell that I need to do this. I’m doing this for myself, to grow in faith and knowledge of God and knowledge of myself. And to talk about soccer. And knitting. And the Bible.

Basically, I started this blog on a whim (see above: vain attempt). I’m not planning on telling anyone about it or advertising it or posting it on social media. If you’ve stumbled onto this blog, that’s really your own problem. Please consider either more constructive ways you might spend your time or the slim possibility that there might be something edifying in my posts. I do pray that I am not a stumbling block to anyone. And I ask that you pray for me.

*this is at least my fourth attempt at blogging. I’m legitimately somewhere between ambivalent to mildly contemptuous of blogging. There’s just a lot out there. I always mean to read blogs, and then I don’t. And also, I generally avoid blogs. So, it’s only fitting that I should start a blog.