Instead, I’ve been involved in a healthy conversation here.

I’ve got a couple offerings at the Solomon’s Porch/Emergent Institute next month, in case you’re interested. One’s with Will Penner on youth ministry, and the other is a 2-day conversation about the theology of Jurgen Moltmann. I’d love to have you there.

Maybe you’ve heard of “mission creep.” Well, I find it amazing how many distractions can creep into the life of even the most well-meaning author. Here I am, 10 days into writing, and I’ve got one page to show for it. Ugh. Lunches, emails, t-ball games, carpools. They all stand between me and a completed book.

Well, at least the cleanse is going well…

Maybe my favorite book of the winter was Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods. Rarely do I laugh out loud while reading, but I did often during my voracious consumption of this book. In fact, I left my original copy, given to me by Brandon Barker, in a hotel room (on the back of the toilet), so I had to spring for another copy while flying through O’Hare. It was worth it — what a great writer Bryson is. I’d kill to be able to write in such a winsome and hilarious tone, while also saying something important. Who knows, maybe I’ll bump into him next month in Hanover, NH.

Yesterday, I finally picked up a book I’ve long been wanting to read, given to me a year ago by James Mills. It’s a collection of speeches by Vaclav Havel, a man I have long admired. In an age of Christianism, spin, and speech writers, Havel wrote his own speeches and always spoke the truth — and he spoke unequivocally about truth. I wonder what he’d say if he was going to speak at Liberty University…

Having finished my coursework and comps, and before the next book and then (drumroll, please) dissertation — hey, if Lauren Winner can finish hers, then I can finish mine — I read a few books for pleasure. One great one was In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien. It was wicked…good. That is, it was wicked and good and wicked good. I really want to read The Things They Carried next. This dude is haunted by Vietnam, but he also happens to be a postmodern memoirist and novelist, playing with issues of truth and reality.

I listened to 1776 by David McCullough — it was excellent. The fact that he can not only write a great story, but also read it in such a compelling fashion was admirable.

The Kite Runner was also on the reading list. I liked it — it moved along briskly — but didn’t love it. For the second time, I tried, and failed to read Eco’s Baudolino — I just can’t get past about page 150. The same thing happens when I try to read Foucault’s Pendulum.

Finally, I’m alsmost done with a history of Byzantium. It’s pretty dry, and it moves along too fast, but it’s good to fill in about 500 years of history that I’m pretty fuzzy on.

Next in the queue: one hundred years of solititude.

Yesterday I returned from a meeting in Dallas, concluding a whirlwind of travel. Since the beginning of the year, I have flown over 32,000 miles — all domestic — on Northwest. And now, that is done. I don’t travel again for business until August.

But, I do start blogging again today. Now that I’ll be sitting at a desk most every day from 6am till 3pm, I’ll take 15 minutes to post something.

I’m also starting a 24-day master colon cleanse today, shepherded by my natural health coach, Shelley Pagitt. Although I will miss meat, cheese, and wheat, my coffee addition is going to be the toughest to beat. Don’t call me this morning. I’m a bastard without coffee.

But, most significantly, I’m starting work on a new book today. Actually, I’m continuing work on one (a novel) and starting a new one. I don’t know exactly what the new one is going to be about, but I hope that will unfold in the next few weeks.

You wanna talk about culture? I’ll be speaking at Colorado Christian University’s Ethos conference on Friday night (my birthday!). Barry Taylor will be there on Thursday night, and he’ll surely be even more compelling than I.

Emergent is proud to be one of the founding sponsors of the all-new Journal of Student Ministries. As well as supporting this great new mag, I will be co-writing a regular column, “Sparks,” with Sean McDowell.

You can subscribe here.

It was at my son, Tanner’s, kindergarten. We learned how to start a story by answering the questions Who? Where? and What Happened? We then talked writing what happens First, Next, and Last.

It was a blast. The hardest part was getting the kids to work on the words instead of the pictures in their stories.

He’s big time now!