adding to apocrypha

on the way home tonight from Uncle Larry & Aunt Sally's Annual Square Dance (formerly the Leindecker holiday / event of the year -- surpassing even Christmas (I hypothesize its ability to articulate a symbolic grammar of nostalgia for farm life is the reason) some years -- this year just a good ol' time, less of a family time, possibly because of Grandma Cory's "passing."), Jaelyn and Addison had a little squabble so I turned around and told them a version of the story / interaction b/n Jesus & Andrew about how ongoing forgiveness must be...how living Jesus' teachings is HARDEST with our brothers.

JAELYN: Did they have sisters?

ADDISON: More! Tell more.

JAELYN: Tell a story about their sisters, Daddy.

ME: Not sure that they had any sisters. it's not really clear. [andrew resists the urge to here insert an editorial regarding feminist criticism of the biblical narrative.]

ADDISON: More! Sisters, JayJay!

JAELYN: Yeah, Dad. Tell a story about their sister, Jaelyn.

Of course this is all happening with lines over top of each other, so I'm still deciding on my response, when Jaelyn intervened.

JAELYN: "And their sister, Jaelyn, was talking to Jesus, and all of the sudden a SNAKE came up and wrapped around her leg. Jesus took a knife and he CUT the snake. He cut off its head. He cut off its tail. He cut all the parts of it."

Maybe I'm rearing a prophetess, because the way that she wound the Eden / serpent / He shall crush your head, you shall bruise his heel / Eve - Lillith imagery together was really quite impressive.

Anyone ready to name Jaelyn the next Ellen White or Joseph Smith...?

Hope your weekend included some...

peace~

two days -- two retractions...

Why have I been moved over to the NEW blogger posting box? Not a fan. I like seeing MORE not LESS info on my screen.

This is public retraction 2 of the day, but I just wrote a long email psuedo-retracting an even longer conversation -- if i had a fortune cookie today it would say something like: You're life will be better off if you can undo breaking open this cookie..

Public Retraction Two: David, my brother, is far more orderly, organized & Steven Covey Worthy than I am.

Which maybe made the whole thing about his a-futurism ( a new religion, perhaps?) so bizarre.

And lest you think that I spit in the eye of the sovreignity of God -- worrying, as I do, about what the morrow brings -- let me assure you that I *do* trust in the sovreignity of God, but I also trust that the sovreignity of God is partly responsible for my over-active need to DO. to MAKE. to ACHIEVE. Right?

No?

It's late. GregGibbs was here. Tonight. Out of the blue. Rich, deep, fun talks. Always.

peace~

vacation, retraction, reflection

we spent the last week in michigan. drove from canton at 6 p.m. last thursday, returned to casacommunitas at 12:30 this morning.

during the trip up, lynn and i had some deep - dark and some deep - light talks...i felt much closer to her. seems like talking / conversation -- the value we share most deeply and that binds us most fiercely to each other -- is always priced at a premium these days ...

spent several days with dave and linda in south haven, mi. we hadn't been there before, but it seemed just about perfect. the extended gibbs family has been singing its praises in several keys for several years and so finally their witness broke through and i accepted this particular unique salvation.

what was the shape of this grace?

free bikes from our inn, so meandering conversational bike rides, plenty of great food, "committee meetings" galore, some hardcore sunburning on the shore of lake michigan, lots of rich dialogue about everything imaginable.

late one night, after my E self had pretty much vampired all the energy of the other three I's in the room....i proclaimed -- "that's all there is in the world! memories and relationships!"

it still seems like a worthwhile axiom, but later we discovered that i had left out essential things like eating and tables in that particular equation...

hung out for a long time with each of my brothers and parents by the pool at geborgenheit. with david was provoked by the shocking revelation that he doesn't think about the future. no five year plan. no ten year plan. no thoughts of legacy or coherence. just honesty and genuineness *now*.

with daniel we debated pacifism and then the redemptive arc hermeneutic...

which brings me to the retraction -- turns out that LYNN is NOT a pacifist. she's just clearly opposed to the war we've most recently engaged in and thinking really hard about the implications of a commitment to nonviolence.

resultant self discovery: turns out that i am more likely to EMBRACE *then* consider when it comes to new positions. this may be a helpful rubric for those of you struggling to justify my earlier self descriptions as *liberal* and *pacifist*. i chalk this up to my 1.) penchant for hyperbole, 2.) my empathic strain, 3.) my procilivity to think outloud (i think marcia gave me the term "external processor"), & 4.) my tendency to want to think / be / perform outside of "the box". which, if you think about it, is kind of odd because this whole *embracing* thing just locks me into a new box...

sometime i'll devote a whole blog to how affixing our identities to the various discursive formations that surround us is always problematic and conflictual....but (big sigh of relief audience) not today.

have i fulfilled the promises of my title? can i end for the day?

i do want to offer a shout out to John who is a new blogger and has a goshdarn deep blog entry...

~peace.