Every time I sit down to write, I end up writing about something else. This has never happened to me before and I am not enjoying it very much. Focus and speed have always been my trustworthy traveling companions but they have become suddenly unreliable.

Part of this is a season of life thing as I round the corner from 43-44. The pressure is starting to get to me.

Part of this is a state of the world thing as the the 24 hour news cycle relentlessly barrages us with crisis after crisis, threat after threat. There is an inevitable fatigue that sets in from this climate of chaos.

Part of this is simple biology as a lack of sleeping through the night for two decades meets a lack of exercise in the past 6 months to form a  a constant chicken-and-egg round-about.  I’m just not at my sharpest.

Perhaps the most significant factor, however, stems as a natural bi-product of being a life-long generalist who has chosen to go into an interdisciplinary field.

  • I’m doing final edits on a book with my mentor introducing post-colonial theology.
  • My dissertation is on critical race theory and church leadership.
  • Spring semester classes include ecclesiology, essentials of christian theology, as well as ‘systems & culture change’ which address the supposed final forms of nation, consumer capitalism, and democracy. I have tied them all together with biblical fundamentalism as the glue that binds them into a concrete whole.

Add to all of this that I am also beginning to look for a job for this fall when my contract at the seminary runs out … and you can see why my thoughts wander like a series of rabbit trails.

Here is the good news: I have been writing a lot. I like what I am writing. It feels like something good will come out of the writing … eventually.

So this little note is both a ‘touching base’ and a prayer request, an update and a confession at the same time. If you have any good advice, I am open – if you are a person who prays, I would appreciate it.

I hope that peace finds you wherever you are on this Wednesday. Gratitude is a wonderful traveling companion and I am grateful for all of your support, affirmation, and engagement.   -Bo

 

p.s. if you have been following along with reading for essentials in christian theology, I just wanted to remind you that we are not reading in sequence and that this week’s topic is Pinnock’s chapter 6 on the evangelical tradition in the intro to N. American perspectives.  A post will follow shortly.

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