Sounds good. Doesn't the GTD regime use a kind of tagging for type of work too? When I my own variation I divided my to-do list into phone, errands, office, etc.but it ended up being too elaborate for its worth and I dropped the system. Lately I've been testing out Merlin Mann's '(10+2)*5' method for keeping extraneous interesting things from eating away my time.

See, I read this and I want to say "Hey John, what are you really talking about?" This talk of planks, this talk of using church as clubs, this insistence that church is only questions... There's a story here. A life story, a rich story, literature of the everyday. John, who was clubbed? John, who's claiming they have ready-made answers?

Wow, she really does look like a trapeze artist with the photo turned around like that (or do you have the TV mounted horizontally off the wall?)

Lucky you. The downside to Philadelphia Quakerism is that invitation-only gatherings like this fill up quickly and that if you're not on the inside you miss out. I'm sure you'll share your experiences with us and I look forward to tempting you away to talk world & life!

I've known plenty of mushy liberals who say we should all write love letters to the presidents we don't like. I don't know, I don't buy it. How's that saying go?: "Love without truth is sentimentality."

Surveys were done when Bush began the second Iraq War, a war that we all knew (or should have known) was based on false pretenses and faked intelligence. I was just so sad when I read that Christians were more likely to support the war than atheists. The Sermon on the Mount and all of Jesus' teachings were really clear that it's our job to be on the side of the suffering and to be ready to lift up the cross. I'm worried a lot less about George Bush than I am with those who have met the Living Christ but still support war.

I know I'm sounding absolutist but we were warned that it's a narrow path. I myself stumble off it *all the time* but the point is to get back on. We mustn't dwell in personal recriminations, but forgive ourselves, forgive our fellow journeyers, reclaim Christ's message, pick up that cross and find our way back to that path. Whenever I see one of these forgiveness exercises, I think of Matthew 7, where Jesus is warning us not to judge and to quit worrying over the imperfections in our brother's eye. I don't know George Bush except through the media. He's mostly a cartoon figure. That makes him an easy target to condemn, to praise, to forgive, etc. If you add in hints that Jesus drops in the Good Samaritan tale and the ever mysterious render-unto-Caesar bit, I think he's telling us to stop worrying about the powerful we don't know so we can focus on our flesh-and-blood neighbors, the people that we meet when we're walking down our street. How can we witness to Jesus' radical message and in our broken ways be used to point people back to that path?

For the record and since the question was asked: me, I don't really like Coldplay. I tried listening to this new one but it sounded like every other trying-too-hard song they've written. They've made their deal with the devil to write chord progressions that get under your skin but that doesn't make me want to listen to it again.

I hope everyone has a blogging hiatus till I get back home mid-December. I have internet access for a few more days but then it's lights out for me for a week. Have fun writing the paper!