this morning, jeannie and i are flying to hawaii. i’m presenting the CORE on oahu this coming saturday, but we’re flying to kauai today. it’s my quarterly silent retreat, this time two nights longer than usual (i have until friday, when i fly back to honolulu to do the CORE the next morning — jeannie’s staying on kauai an extra 24 hours). and we’re trying something we’ve never done before: concurrent silent retreats. we’ve agreed to observe silence until dinner time each day. then we’ll make dinner together and talk in the evening.

we have a perfect place for this. a friend’s church owns a cabin up on the side of a mountain, with no electricity, solar lighting, propane stove, no tv or internet (shoot, there’s not even any outlets!), a big porch with forever views, no neighbors, and an extremely large portion of silence and stillness and disengagement.

i’m looking forward to reading and sleeping and thinking and praying. the books i’m bringing:
totally wired: what teens and tweens are really doing online (i’m halfway through this, and will finish it on the flight over)
yellow: race in america beyond black and white (i read most of this 6 weeks ago, and want to finish it)
the only road north: 9000 miles of dirt and dreams
everything you wanted to know about jesus: well… maybe not everything but enough to get you started
grace (eventually): thoughts on faith (anne lamott’s newest)
teenage: the creation of youth culture
the dance of the dissident daughter
how (not) to speak of god

don’t know that i’ll finish them all. we’ll see.

i have two posts set to go live each day while i’m disconnected, btw.