off to the land of no cell phones, internet & tv

no posts for the upcoming week, y'all.

may your sojourn in civilization give you

peace~

blogging topics which will probably go unrealized:

its vacation -- shouldn't i have more thoughts simmering than time to write them on a blog?

1. shouldn't libertarians *want* the government to stay out of regulating marraige? + if Christians believe (a la Romans 1) that Jesus calls people unto himself by revealing himself throughout the world *&* if marriage is the best metaphor for God's consumation of his love for us *then* doesn't it make sense that *encouraging* gay marraige would allow everyone who partook in that part of God's truth to be led even closer to Jesus? (Do you think I may still have a career with Focus on the Family?)

2.what if everybody thought that part of the legacy they left for their world was some stories. Some people would continue the great oral tradition of storytelling, some people would blog a lot, some people would make children's books for their kids and grandkids, other people would make little movies. And if we started thinking of *our* stories as reconsistituting a seam between our selves and the *place* worlds we lived in -- then even this little books and stories and movies and songs would have audiences...

3. i'm mostly a *post* evangelical because i'm so desperately concerned that the evangelistic / missional impulse to *get it right* and to *convince* an audience makes every story go south. It chokes out the ambivalences that all good stories need.

4. I'm feeling like all my marxism and critical theory is making me feel too heavy about the world. that my stories (particularly the dark play that i'm currently trapped inside) have been too sincere. I love the flitting, easygoing COMIC FRAME that my Grandma Marge and Grandpa Andy use to talk about their complex and difficult lives. And I think that maybe I need to write an essay where Grandma Marge and the narrator of "Unbearable Lightness of Being" hash it out. Because unlike Tomas' lightness, my Lampiris family heritage is rooted in great tragedy *&* laughter. And unlike the surrealists exisistential irony, the Lampiris laughter is always both self-effacing & heartily *with*...

5. I leave for *the cabin" in one day.




"Treasure Island" (its other name) has been one of the deep resources of continuity and peace in my life, and when our family talked about the eventual possibility of being forced to sell it -- we argued about the merits of using profits to invest in a new family cottage (more accessible)? and honor Grandparents Rudds that way OR -- my dad suggested -- what about the horrific poverty of the world and our relative wealth? Could we invest that profit in a way that would satisfy more people in more diverse ways? It's the question of Mary Magdelene's absurd perfume performance art -- abject generousity VS. settling in the post-babylonic Jerusalem and "planting gardens" -- investing in the systems that will provide long term resource for the Kingdom and world?

vacation doings

Lynn and I had a weekend rendezvous at a little hotel that we've returned to regularly since our first stay 12 years ago during our honeymoon.

when we got back to Gramma Glo & Bampa Bill's house where the kids had been staying and playing with their cousins --



Patty (a longtime family friend) had arrived to provide Jaelyn and Addison one of the highlights of their vacation...





a ride on her Harley...

otherwise we've been:

1.) celebrating hundreds of birthdays,

2.) building a huge fence,

3.) reading a (very) little,

4.) swimming a (very) little.

5.) chillin with Aunts, Uncles & Livermores.

&

6.) looking forward to heading north to the cabin next week...

in completely unrelated news, but utterly worthwhile to think about...

More info (including pictures) about The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe has been released.