Down and Out of Time

As you can probably guess from the lack of activity here on the blog, my summer has been quite full. Between working, backpacking, planning surprise parties, going on Search & Rescue missions, and getting sick, time for reading and writing has been scarce.

Spiritually I feel like I'm at a very ambiguous place, disoriented, dried up, and possibly a little jaded. However, as long as faith lasts, it is not an aimless ambiguity, but rather a pregnant ambiguity, like that of a darkroom. Discipleship, like development, takes time. Weeping may endure for a night, joy comes in the morning. "But tension is to be loved / when it is like a passing note / to a beautiful, beautiful chord"

Anyway, in the absence of anything more substantial, I'll throw out some random stuff from the last couple of weeks.

• Peter recently introduced me to the late Christian folk group Silers Bald. Their album Real Life is the best I've heard in awhile: creative, intelligent, and encouraging. Definitely worth a listen.
• I just finished C. S. Lewis's On Stories, which I actually found slightly boring. I think I'm getting to where I'd rather read stories than read about them.
  
• I have a new toothbrush that is extremely painful. I like hard brushes, but these bristles are so hard and so wide that it's impossible to brush without lacerating your gums. Anyway, just stay away from TopCare.
• There was a book sale at the library this morning, and I found several titles I've been watching for, among them Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy and Jon Meacham's American Gospel. I also picked up a copy of Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz.
• Lately I've been enjoying several excellent podcasts: Steve Brown Etc., Internet Monk Radio, and The God Journey. I may have time to say more about these podcasts later - for now I'll just say that these are guys who are thinking beyond the cookie cutters and clichés and asking the tough questions. Good stuff.
• I'm becoming increasingly interested in rethinking the answers to basic questions we take for granted about who God is, why life matters, and what it means to be a Christian. Expect some ruminations along these lines sometime in the future.
  

As always, thanks for reading, and God bless you.

Take my broken offering and make it whole / set my feet upon the road that leads me home / let me walk as one fixed upon the goal / even though I got a thousand miles to go

-Caedmon's Call

Photo credit: "The Dock" by Rick Coulby (interfacelift.com)