On journaling

I've kept journals on and off since my first Girl Scout diary in the mid-1960s. It's probably why I find blogging so natural - I've had a propensity to record my thoughts and feelings for all but the first few years of my life. That first GS Diary - with its vinyl cover and cute little lock which my sister Karen picked with regularity - is still something I reach to from time to time, kind of like my own personal reference material.

I digress.

There's journaling, and then there's journaling. Most of the time I let the words just pour forth, following a trail illuminated by something heralding me from some unknown location. There's also directed journaling, the type that's encouraged on occasions like retreats.

It's the latter I'm called to now, by connection to a book I'm reading. Vinita Hampton Wright, in her Days of Deepening Friendship, encourages self-reflection and journaling at the end of each chapter. Clearly, it's the type of book to be nibbled in small bites, not devoured in a couple of sittings like Joe Torre's The Yankee Years.

I'm digressing again. Lots going on here (losing my balance!), which is further confirmation that I need to be working through Vinita's book.

Back to journaling - given how many years I've been pounding on a computer keyboard (did some COBOL / DB2 programming back in the 80s and 90s), my handwriting is worse than it was when it used to keep me off the honor roll back in grammar school (OK, it didn't really keep me off honor roll, but you get the picture). These days, all my journaling is done electronically. I've been known to lug my laptop to retreats for this very reason.

Suggestion to my friends at Loyola Press and all you other publishers out there - include a CD-ROM or web link with the journaling questions electronically translated for people like me so I don't have to spend extra time typing a summary of the reflection point before I begin. I'll love you for it, and I'm sure others will, as well.

Pax vobiscum! mbp

PS - Loyola Press, publisher of Deepening Friendship, will be sponsoring a FREE online women's Lenten Retreat (for my guys - I'm not sure they'll turn you away at the retreat portal. It's worth asking if you can join us). For more info, click here.