Items of interest

I haven't managed to find the time or creativity to blog lately, even though there's been a lot going on in my head and heart that I would normally work through by spewing some words into the blogosphere. This remains the status quo, so instead of posting my own thoughts, I'll direct you to a couple of guys I admire who are thinking and blogging about some of the same things that have been rattling around in my skull lately.

I'm a big fan of Bob Carlton. Never met him, but his blog is chock full of really good stuff, both theological and mundane. I've been reading him for several months, but I don't think I've ever seen Bob quite this cynical before. I've had some cynical days over the past couple of months, but I think Bob beats me hands down. That being the case, I'm not saying Bob speaks for me - more that the fact that someone as cool as Bob has been driven to such deep, dark feelings about our Anglican tribe is itself a cause for something like mourning.

I'm also a big fan of Steve Pankey, whom I do know personally. He's reflecting about rules (in a church context), today. I've been thinking about that too. He doesn't really come to any peace with the subject, but in his analysis, he talks about why God may have given us "rules". This is good theology, IMHO, and to me it begs the question: in the case of any particular rule or set of rules - did God give them to us? Or did we give them to ourselves? And if the latter - is it really a gift? Or a shackle? Is the process of building any human institution inevitably a process of forging the "right" kind of shackles?

Hmm. There's me getting cynical. But not as cynical as Bob. :-)

DC Emergent Cohort meeting, Monday 16 October

Please attend to this important notice, lifted verbatim from my friend Steve's blog:

we finally got word on the location for the october meeting of the dc emergent cohort. it'll be held at, gulp, wesley tholeogical seminary. You are invited to join them for dinner in their refectory from 5:30 'til 6:30 ($7.50) or just show up at the Kresge Building and follow signs for the 7 PM discussion with Diana Butler Bass on her new book, Christianity for the Rest of Us.

I'd recommend you come, it'll be good even though its at Wesley.

That parting comment is due to Steve's being part of a rival gang, known as Virginia Theological Seminary. Perhaps if you come, you will see Wesley and VTS folks dancing and snapping and wielding jackknives, just like in West Side Story. ;-)

Thanks, Steve, for the words I stole. "Don't shade your eyes - plagiarize!" :-D

UPDATE: A comment from Steve reminded me that urban hoods (and, presumably, rumbling urban seminarians) use switchblades, not jackknives. (And to add to my self-doubt, does that word really have two k's in it? Probably not.) Sorry. I'm a redneck. We use jack[k?]nives, and don't care whether we can spell them.

My wife, however, uses carefully balanced throwing blades. She has a "to hit" bonus of +3 against goblins and their ilk. :-)

Missional

Sometimes, folks have asked me what "missional" means. Other times (I'm sure), they've heard me use the word and wondered what in blazes I was talking about.

Here's what it means.

Thanks, Bartimaeus.

Life

At some point, I really need to blog about what's going on in my life. Much of it is really quite interesting, and I'm sort of in the mood lately to blog about "life" instead of "theology". (Although, to be honest, I'm trying pretty hard to sort out some thorny pseudo-theological issues right now too - like "what does the word 'church' mean to me?") But anyway, although my life is somewhat interesting lately, that same life seems to leave me little time to write about it - especially in light of the fact that so much interesting stuff has been going on, it's hard to know where to start. Hmm. A paradox.

There - aren't you glad you came to my blog today? After all that silence, a post that says nothing. It's positively Seinfeldian. Tina hates Seinfeld. She wouldn't approve.