Home and Away

I got to enjoy the luxury of my own bed for but a single night. Yesterday, having just landed at Heathrow, we were informed that we'd be leaving for Ireland the very next day (rather than the day after as planned). We're off to Belfast and Dublin to support Iron and Wine on the Irish leg of their European tour but didn't realise that our ferry was booked for the evening before the day of the first gig... It was pretty hellish to find out that we would have next to no time to get over the jet lag or to see our girlfriends, but now, riding along in the tour bus (where blogging is enabled by a wireless system and our new tour manager Chris sits more peacefully at the wheel than Kevin), I am over the worst of the shock. Oftentimes I wonder to what extent the trade off between employment and commodification in this business is warranted, or at least worthwhile, but there are indeed excellent experiences along the way. The last day in Seattle was one such, for instance. A huge fire, built by Ryan's dad Joe, sat proudly burning outside the log cabin at dusk, and we ate the chicken cooked for us by Ryan's mum, played our guitars, and talked and laughed loudly while reflecting on our first session in Bear Creek. Listening back to the CD of the work we did there has so far confirmed for me a lot of the things that I felt in the studio - that we got a lot of good stuff recorded, but a lot of more work and re-preparation is needed. That’s a good thing to get now though, I suppose, its all still to play for....

In other news, I’ve been pretty busy trying to put together a book proposal for T and T about the flaws in the Church’s health policy concerning the treatment of people with disabilities. Desirably, I would like to pitch a co-author work with two other writers in order to increase the dialogue within the work itself and to explore a variety of perspectives and expert opinions on the theme. Dr. Wayne Morris and Prof. Chris Cook will potentially undertake this project with me, but there is still a lot of explaining and convincing to be done. A trip up to Durham to meet Chris is already planned. I’m nervous but really hopeful that he’ll come along with me.

I just finished reading a great book too. George Pattison’s ’The End of Theology and the task of thinking about God’. There’s a lot in there to think about and a lot that I’m still trying to penetrate. It is definitely one to re-read. One of the most interesting suggestions he makes is that the very notion of doctrine is a presupposition of a final answer to a timeless body of questions - a way of doing theology that he finds wrongheaded and overly metaphysical. Rather, Pattison argues, the task before us is to continually think about God using the resources of the present, the conceptual categories available to us from the past, and the hope that is accredited to us from the future. More on this soon, I hope.