I'm doing midterms... papers and exams... grading them, that is.
I like midterm.
It is like Wednesdays...
Hump day.
From here on it is counting DOWN to Christmas...
As for my courses...
LCE is very impressive... what hard workers these students are!!!
CLPL has insightful students... they just did their church planting proposals... I wrote about it in my column this week
TEACHING THE BIBLE TO ADULTS is a first time new course... 90% eager beavers in there... man, in one week they did what I was hoping to get done in 3 (bot don't tell them that!)
PRACTICUMS are going good--except I have a ton of grading to do on them this coming week.
AS FOR FALL BREAK... Sharon and I are headed south in Indiana... reading and resting and snuggling in front of a fireplace.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
I'm Swamped
If you have sent an email to me and not heard back it is because I'm swamped. It happens every fall so it is not new, but somehow I always feel surprised by it anyway. I've got a stack of grading to do and this weekend is already committed to paper-grading, and my schedule of appointments with students (posted on my door) is jammed... I feel "trapped" by a trap of my own making...
When I get swamped like this I usually go through several stages:
1. Work faster. I try to work my way back above water first. That always fails eventually.
2. Work slower. Then I get depressed and do nothing for a while--which makes matters worse.
3. Kill stuff. Finally I see the house burning down and I act-- I cancel engagements, do a sloppy job of giving feedback on papers, delete all the email in the in-box and just don't show up to committees.
4. Fresh start. After all that I pretend I am caught up even though I actually just buried the overload.
I'm at stage 2 today.
When I get swamped like this I usually go through several stages:
1. Work faster. I try to work my way back above water first. That always fails eventually.
2. Work slower. Then I get depressed and do nothing for a while--which makes matters worse.
3. Kill stuff. Finally I see the house burning down and I act-- I cancel engagements, do a sloppy job of giving feedback on papers, delete all the email in the in-box and just don't show up to committees.
4. Fresh start. After all that I pretend I am caught up even though I actually just buried the overload.
I'm at stage 2 today.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
What I'm teaching this Fall
I'm coaching several repeat courses and two new courses this fall.
1. Local church Education. My best course and the one I always love the most. I've got about 30 sophomores in this course and they are impressive. We focus on the Spiritual Formation of the congregation as a whole and the students "write a book" in the course. Every time I've taught it it has been my favorite. It is a five-hour course in loading since there are two practicum sections beyond the course that go along with the course.
2. Church Leadership. Graduates always write back to tell me this is actually my best course. I never feel that way. It is packed with the practical stuff of leading, administration and management in the church. I always dislike having to 'tell them the truth" about how "real life" operates and I dread the crestfallen looks and sighs when students who live in dorms supported by loans and family find out what real life in a real local church is going to be like. But I stick to it since I get so many responses after they're in the local church. I have about 25 in this course. It too has a practicum so it is another 5-hour course for me.
3. Teaching the Bible to Adults. This is a brand new course cross-listed as either a Bible course or a CE course... I have 16 in this evening course and they are awesome--it could compete with LCE as my favorite this semester. It replaces the old Adult Education course and includes some of that content but more geared to Bible teaching.
4. UNV180 Breakout. I offered to lead a UNV180 breakout if it was filled with REL students--so I could build relationships with frosh right off the bat. My section is at 3:30 Friday, which is a checkoutville time slot... but as it turned out the group is not all REL students after all, so I'm doing this one out of duty and for the last time probably.
1. Local church Education. My best course and the one I always love the most. I've got about 30 sophomores in this course and they are impressive. We focus on the Spiritual Formation of the congregation as a whole and the students "write a book" in the course. Every time I've taught it it has been my favorite. It is a five-hour course in loading since there are two practicum sections beyond the course that go along with the course.
2. Church Leadership. Graduates always write back to tell me this is actually my best course. I never feel that way. It is packed with the practical stuff of leading, administration and management in the church. I always dislike having to 'tell them the truth" about how "real life" operates and I dread the crestfallen looks and sighs when students who live in dorms supported by loans and family find out what real life in a real local church is going to be like. But I stick to it since I get so many responses after they're in the local church. I have about 25 in this course. It too has a practicum so it is another 5-hour course for me.
3. Teaching the Bible to Adults. This is a brand new course cross-listed as either a Bible course or a CE course... I have 16 in this evening course and they are awesome--it could compete with LCE as my favorite this semester. It replaces the old Adult Education course and includes some of that content but more geared to Bible teaching.
4. UNV180 Breakout. I offered to lead a UNV180 breakout if it was filled with REL students--so I could build relationships with frosh right off the bat. My section is at 3:30 Friday, which is a checkoutville time slot... but as it turned out the group is not all REL students after all, so I'm doing this one out of duty and for the last time probably.
IWU: a Premier Academic Institution?
“If Indiana Wesleyan University Were a Premier Institution,
What Would It Look Like? “
I have been asked to answer the question, “If IWU were a premier institution, what would it look like?” I have chosen to describe what a premier institution would be academically—since this is, after all, the faculty asking this question. There are other areas for excellence, but I shall focus in this short address on being premier academically.
Here is what I predict. By saying “predict” I mean that I fully expect these things to happen. The die is cast. Our sails are already set. IWU will become a premier institution during the next ten years. Some faculty will be dragged along kicking and screaming. Others will feel out of place and will go underground, or go elsewhere. But, I fully believe that within ten years we will be considered a premier academic institution not just by our peers in the CCCU but in the larger academy and beyond. Here are my five predictions:
1. We will increasingly become a reading faculty
• We will not only be constantly reading to keep current in our own field but we will become voracious readers in other fields as we become the renaissance women and men who are examples of integrating ideas from all fields into our own discipline. The liberal arts will be more than a few courses in the general education requirements—it will pervade the curriculum.
• Faculty reading groups will continue to spread over our campus during the next ten years so that virtually every faculty member will be in at least once of the cross-discipline groups every year.
• The real test of this reading faculty will be this: When a future IWU faculty member completes a dissertation virtually every member of that person’s division will read their dissertation—because they are interested in the findings and do not make light of dissertations as if they are meaningless hoops to jump through.
• In the very near future our faculty will schedule reading days on their door just like they now offer student appointments. When students see faculty in their office reading a book and will never say, “I see you’re not busy-can we talk.” They will know that this is our work.
2. We will increasingly become a presenting faculty
• IWU faculty will start showing up in force at conferences and conventions. Rather than one delegate (or, sometimes none) we will send three and eventually a dozen. We will start overrunning some conferences—IWU faculty will be everywhere. Rather than our absence being noticed, they will notice our presence. We cannot expect to present if we are not present.
• This mass of faculty will attend scores of presentations. We will sometimes walk away delightfully challenged. At other times we will leave knowing we could have done better, and we will make several proposals for the next year and the excellent work we are not kidding under the bushel will come out on the open to the benefit of others.
• With an army of bright (and increasingly young) IWU faculty at conferences other institutions will begin to take notice. Presidents will try to recruit our best faculty away and they will get some of course. But the process is reversible too—we will recruit all kinds of sharp faculty from other institutions who want to be a part of the ethos of IWU. Properly planned conference attendance will become our best means of faculty recruitment.
• Within a half decade IWU faculty will begin rising to lead many of these conferences sponsoring many here on our campus.
• In ten years the IWU faculty will be widely known for its interesting, well prepared, provocative presentations. Old-timers like you will then be telling stories about how we once actually only had $400 a year to attend conferences!
3. We will increasingly become a writing faculty
• By 2017 there will be a virtual flood of writing coming from the IWU faculty. Our faculty will be publishing textbooks, readers, teaching strategies, instructional videos and scores of articles in professional journals. It is already started. Just watch as it escalates!
• Our faculty will become the editors of some professional journals and IWU will found several new journals where there are gaps now.
• In ten years when you open a textbook written collaboratively that there will almost always be one member of the IWU faculty represented.
• Yet, with all this academic writing we will not ignore the common person in our fields—we will also continue to produce popular writers who will stand on solid academic research and “translate” it for average readers—pastors, nurses, business leaders, or educators. In the future when our students go into hospitals, schools systems or local churches they will meet people who have already read the popular and helpful books by the faculty they studied with the last four years.
4. We will become a researching faculty
• Of course, to do the writing above we will have to do our research, but in the next ten years we will increasingly become a place where significant research happens that contributes to our fields. All of us may not do this kind of top-drawer research but some of us will and we all will be known for the work of these researchers among us.
• But our students will do research too. When faculty are constantly asking questions and constantly wondering about the relationship things they infect their students with curiosity. Curious students will want to research what their faculty are wondering about. In ten years our students will be doing research more advanced than anything our faculty are doing today—just watch!
5. We will increasingly practice faculty scholarship-as-the-whole
• However, to make IWU a lively haven for the life of the mind we will have to move beyond the individual scholarship mentioned above into collective scholarship-as-a-whole… the scholarship of the gathered faculty. Soon we will not be satisfied with faculty meetings to hear progress reports and gather information about policies but we will have faculty gatherings typified by thoughtful presentations, serious deliberative discussions, heated yet temperate debate, pondering various positions, asking penetrating questions, and making up our minds on substantive issues. If a student slips into a faculty meeting of the future they would not see children being lectured or informed, but a family of adult scholars deliberating on serious issues.
• We will see a parade of celebrated scholars coming to deliver lectures on our campus as we are already seeing sponsored by Dr. Pattengale’s office and the Honors College. A large number of faculty will turn out to listen and respond, not just a few. We will attend because we have entered fully the life of thinking and learning—the very life we wish to replicate in our students.
• Students will daily see faculty members eating lunch together in Baldwin as they argue about politics, academics, learning theories, or theology. Neighboring tables of students will end their chatter as a hush falls over their table as they listen in. they will be inspired to read and think and explore—like their faculty members do at lunch.
• While faculty retreats will probably still offer getting-to-know-you type games and other youth retreat activities increasingly they will become venues for serious academic presentations. Our late-night sessions will be typified by deep and significant discussions about global issues. We will play together but we will increasingly think together. “Building relationships” does not have to be shallow—the deepest relationships are often built around the interchange of great academic ideas.
• All this will attract new bright faculty members who will want to be a part of the kind of learning community we are becoming here. They will be attracted to IWU more for this academic ethos than the 90th percentile CCCU salaries which we will no doubt have in 10 years.
-------------------
These are my five predictions. They will happen but we can slow them down or hurry them along. How can we hurry them along?
Prioritizing the Life of the Mind at IWU
Primarily, we will have to make time for the life of the mind. This is already happening—we just need to hurry it along. Here is how we’ll make time for the life of the mind.
We will increasingly schedule time for reading and writing and attending lectures. We’ll schedule it because we value it. And we will not feel guilty about our temporary unavailability for student chats about dating life or frustrations with their mother.
We will have to quit teaching so many overloads. We have already passed a sense-of-the-body resolution stating our intention of significantly curtailing overloads when the administration initiated a significant salary increase. Our President said these two are related so in our resolution we sort of said, “You first.” Well, the administration did go first, and has initiated a three-year phase in of a significant salary adjustment. Now it is incumbent upon us to reply in kind—phasing in over the coming three years some sort of self-limiting overload policy during the regular semesters to free up time to read and write and present and to practice the life of the mind.
We will have to use our summers. Our contracts read from the end of August to the end of April—but to become a premier institution we will have to quit taking four months off. Summers will have to increasingly become a time for scholarship—especially writing.
We will have to cease our self-talk about busy-ness. We have gotten hooked on the frantic life. We have too often excused ourselves from hard academic work while pleading the hopeless frantic pace of our institution. But, we are changing—I can see it. We need to simply do what we value. As we value scholarship we will make time for it. We will quit hypnotizing each other into believing we are too busy to read and write and present and practice scholarship. If we are too busy to write we are too busy. We always have time to do what we want to do.
Of course, we’ll need money. While money is mostly in the administration’s court, the faculty must be ready with an aggressive plan to spend more cash with better stewardship. More money for conferences or released time for writing or a sabbatical is not a job perk. We must leverage this money and time for greater contribution to our constituency and the academy—it is simply part of our job.
As for our students we will bring greater academic rigor to our classrooms. We will quit complaining about the fun and game atmosphere in residence halls and simply assign the kind of work that will remind our students quickly that they are in college and not attending a year round youth camp. ( Such an informal initiative is already under way by some faculty with the recent “Academic Rigor Weeks Initiative” where students are imprinted in the first two weeks of a semester with the importance of academic pursuits by a) requiring one entire book be read, b)one major test to be taken and 3) using a significant amount of small group work inside and outside of class so that primary relationships can be developed in an academic setting pursuing learning not just building cardboard boats. These kind of bottom-up initiatives will sprout up every year as the academic ethos changes over the next ten years
These are my predictions. None are really radical or extravagant. If anything they are the moderate extending of the lines begun in the last few years. Imply predictions.
I started teaching as an adjunct at IWU in 1974. I’ve seen lots of changes—most of them could never have been dreamed of ten years before. These are predictions not hopes or goals but they are a straight line extension of trends in the last two years. The momentum is already with this future. If you don’t want to read, write or think you’ll want to hide soon! However, if you hunger for a greater life of the mind IWU is going to be one exciting place over the next ten years!
Keith Drury, IWU Professor of Religion IWU Faculty retreat, August 27, 2007, Invited Essay for Full Faculty
What Would It Look Like? “
I have been asked to answer the question, “If IWU were a premier institution, what would it look like?” I have chosen to describe what a premier institution would be academically—since this is, after all, the faculty asking this question. There are other areas for excellence, but I shall focus in this short address on being premier academically.
Here is what I predict. By saying “predict” I mean that I fully expect these things to happen. The die is cast. Our sails are already set. IWU will become a premier institution during the next ten years. Some faculty will be dragged along kicking and screaming. Others will feel out of place and will go underground, or go elsewhere. But, I fully believe that within ten years we will be considered a premier academic institution not just by our peers in the CCCU but in the larger academy and beyond. Here are my five predictions:
1. We will increasingly become a reading faculty
• We will not only be constantly reading to keep current in our own field but we will become voracious readers in other fields as we become the renaissance women and men who are examples of integrating ideas from all fields into our own discipline. The liberal arts will be more than a few courses in the general education requirements—it will pervade the curriculum.
• Faculty reading groups will continue to spread over our campus during the next ten years so that virtually every faculty member will be in at least once of the cross-discipline groups every year.
• The real test of this reading faculty will be this: When a future IWU faculty member completes a dissertation virtually every member of that person’s division will read their dissertation—because they are interested in the findings and do not make light of dissertations as if they are meaningless hoops to jump through.
• In the very near future our faculty will schedule reading days on their door just like they now offer student appointments. When students see faculty in their office reading a book and will never say, “I see you’re not busy-can we talk.” They will know that this is our work.
2. We will increasingly become a presenting faculty
• IWU faculty will start showing up in force at conferences and conventions. Rather than one delegate (or, sometimes none) we will send three and eventually a dozen. We will start overrunning some conferences—IWU faculty will be everywhere. Rather than our absence being noticed, they will notice our presence. We cannot expect to present if we are not present.
• This mass of faculty will attend scores of presentations. We will sometimes walk away delightfully challenged. At other times we will leave knowing we could have done better, and we will make several proposals for the next year and the excellent work we are not kidding under the bushel will come out on the open to the benefit of others.
• With an army of bright (and increasingly young) IWU faculty at conferences other institutions will begin to take notice. Presidents will try to recruit our best faculty away and they will get some of course. But the process is reversible too—we will recruit all kinds of sharp faculty from other institutions who want to be a part of the ethos of IWU. Properly planned conference attendance will become our best means of faculty recruitment.
• Within a half decade IWU faculty will begin rising to lead many of these conferences sponsoring many here on our campus.
• In ten years the IWU faculty will be widely known for its interesting, well prepared, provocative presentations. Old-timers like you will then be telling stories about how we once actually only had $400 a year to attend conferences!
3. We will increasingly become a writing faculty
• By 2017 there will be a virtual flood of writing coming from the IWU faculty. Our faculty will be publishing textbooks, readers, teaching strategies, instructional videos and scores of articles in professional journals. It is already started. Just watch as it escalates!
• Our faculty will become the editors of some professional journals and IWU will found several new journals where there are gaps now.
• In ten years when you open a textbook written collaboratively that there will almost always be one member of the IWU faculty represented.
• Yet, with all this academic writing we will not ignore the common person in our fields—we will also continue to produce popular writers who will stand on solid academic research and “translate” it for average readers—pastors, nurses, business leaders, or educators. In the future when our students go into hospitals, schools systems or local churches they will meet people who have already read the popular and helpful books by the faculty they studied with the last four years.
4. We will become a researching faculty
• Of course, to do the writing above we will have to do our research, but in the next ten years we will increasingly become a place where significant research happens that contributes to our fields. All of us may not do this kind of top-drawer research but some of us will and we all will be known for the work of these researchers among us.
• But our students will do research too. When faculty are constantly asking questions and constantly wondering about the relationship things they infect their students with curiosity. Curious students will want to research what their faculty are wondering about. In ten years our students will be doing research more advanced than anything our faculty are doing today—just watch!
5. We will increasingly practice faculty scholarship-as-the-whole
• However, to make IWU a lively haven for the life of the mind we will have to move beyond the individual scholarship mentioned above into collective scholarship-as-a-whole… the scholarship of the gathered faculty. Soon we will not be satisfied with faculty meetings to hear progress reports and gather information about policies but we will have faculty gatherings typified by thoughtful presentations, serious deliberative discussions, heated yet temperate debate, pondering various positions, asking penetrating questions, and making up our minds on substantive issues. If a student slips into a faculty meeting of the future they would not see children being lectured or informed, but a family of adult scholars deliberating on serious issues.
• We will see a parade of celebrated scholars coming to deliver lectures on our campus as we are already seeing sponsored by Dr. Pattengale’s office and the Honors College. A large number of faculty will turn out to listen and respond, not just a few. We will attend because we have entered fully the life of thinking and learning—the very life we wish to replicate in our students.
• Students will daily see faculty members eating lunch together in Baldwin as they argue about politics, academics, learning theories, or theology. Neighboring tables of students will end their chatter as a hush falls over their table as they listen in. they will be inspired to read and think and explore—like their faculty members do at lunch.
• While faculty retreats will probably still offer getting-to-know-you type games and other youth retreat activities increasingly they will become venues for serious academic presentations. Our late-night sessions will be typified by deep and significant discussions about global issues. We will play together but we will increasingly think together. “Building relationships” does not have to be shallow—the deepest relationships are often built around the interchange of great academic ideas.
• All this will attract new bright faculty members who will want to be a part of the kind of learning community we are becoming here. They will be attracted to IWU more for this academic ethos than the 90th percentile CCCU salaries which we will no doubt have in 10 years.
-------------------
These are my five predictions. They will happen but we can slow them down or hurry them along. How can we hurry them along?
Prioritizing the Life of the Mind at IWU
Primarily, we will have to make time for the life of the mind. This is already happening—we just need to hurry it along. Here is how we’ll make time for the life of the mind.
We will increasingly schedule time for reading and writing and attending lectures. We’ll schedule it because we value it. And we will not feel guilty about our temporary unavailability for student chats about dating life or frustrations with their mother.
We will have to quit teaching so many overloads. We have already passed a sense-of-the-body resolution stating our intention of significantly curtailing overloads when the administration initiated a significant salary increase. Our President said these two are related so in our resolution we sort of said, “You first.” Well, the administration did go first, and has initiated a three-year phase in of a significant salary adjustment. Now it is incumbent upon us to reply in kind—phasing in over the coming three years some sort of self-limiting overload policy during the regular semesters to free up time to read and write and present and to practice the life of the mind.
We will have to use our summers. Our contracts read from the end of August to the end of April—but to become a premier institution we will have to quit taking four months off. Summers will have to increasingly become a time for scholarship—especially writing.
We will have to cease our self-talk about busy-ness. We have gotten hooked on the frantic life. We have too often excused ourselves from hard academic work while pleading the hopeless frantic pace of our institution. But, we are changing—I can see it. We need to simply do what we value. As we value scholarship we will make time for it. We will quit hypnotizing each other into believing we are too busy to read and write and present and practice scholarship. If we are too busy to write we are too busy. We always have time to do what we want to do.
Of course, we’ll need money. While money is mostly in the administration’s court, the faculty must be ready with an aggressive plan to spend more cash with better stewardship. More money for conferences or released time for writing or a sabbatical is not a job perk. We must leverage this money and time for greater contribution to our constituency and the academy—it is simply part of our job.
As for our students we will bring greater academic rigor to our classrooms. We will quit complaining about the fun and game atmosphere in residence halls and simply assign the kind of work that will remind our students quickly that they are in college and not attending a year round youth camp. ( Such an informal initiative is already under way by some faculty with the recent “Academic Rigor Weeks Initiative” where students are imprinted in the first two weeks of a semester with the importance of academic pursuits by a) requiring one entire book be read, b)one major test to be taken and 3) using a significant amount of small group work inside and outside of class so that primary relationships can be developed in an academic setting pursuing learning not just building cardboard boats. These kind of bottom-up initiatives will sprout up every year as the academic ethos changes over the next ten years
These are my predictions. None are really radical or extravagant. If anything they are the moderate extending of the lines begun in the last few years. Imply predictions.
I started teaching as an adjunct at IWU in 1974. I’ve seen lots of changes—most of them could never have been dreamed of ten years before. These are predictions not hopes or goals but they are a straight line extension of trends in the last two years. The momentum is already with this future. If you don’t want to read, write or think you’ll want to hide soon! However, if you hunger for a greater life of the mind IWU is going to be one exciting place over the next ten years!
Keith Drury, IWU Professor of Religion IWU Faculty retreat, August 27, 2007, Invited Essay for Full Faculty
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Year's end writing inventory
My Year in Writing
2006-2007 School Year
Some of my Tuesday Column readers don’t know that it is my practice writing... most past students know that. To me, writing is like playing the piano—one gets better by practice. When you read my columns here (or on one of my other blogs) ..when people read my Tuesday Column or blogs they are peeking into my practice room. I make mistakes, write and revise even after they are posted. I’m often simply “doing runs” to keep my writing fingers nimble. All this is practice is for my serious “concert performance” –writing for books and curriculum.
I’ve just wrapped up another year of writing (September through August). I’ve completed my own inventory of the year’s writing and publishing and it is here I do an annual inventory mostly to keep myself motivated, like looking back at the grass you’ve already cut to know you’re getting something done. I know some budding writers read this column so I’m also being accountable to you. So, in case you are still reading this, here are some of the “concerts” I’ve written or published this year:
(the original inventory has books pictured --it is located here
1. Walking the Trail of Death
Published summer ‘07. During the spring I finished up my journal of last summer’s walk from Indiana to Kansas. It is a recounting of the story of the original journey of the "removal" of the Potawatomi Indians from Indiana to Kansas while blending in my own story as a white man’s re-tracing every foot of the 660 mile journey—I was the first white man to do so since 1838. Studying the original journals and letters as I walked, and often sleeping at their actual campsites I pondered larger issues of injustice, sin, restitution, and penance. I didn’t think this book was good enough to publish the regular route so I self-published it through LULU.com and it is available there if you want to know what I did last summer—click the picture to see the Lulu page.
2. Knowing God
This neat booklet came out this year. My publisher has a cool series for churches to hand out to people—sort of “evangelistic tracts” but done with real class—something you’d be proud to give a friend, not those cheap newsprint tracts that holler at unbelievers with a turn-or-burn style. Writing an easy-going friendly pocket booklet that would nudge an unbeliever toward God without beating them over the head was a cool challenge. I had a manuscript from 21 years ago that was still sitting in “inventory” so I got it out and reworked it for this booklet. My friend Chris Bounds was not real happy with it (it was too Quaker-ish for him) but no matter, I was happy with it, the publisher was happy, and the churches who are buying them in quantity seem happy so here it is—“what is written is written.”
3. Listening to God through Romans
This was a typical “writing assignment” someone gets who is faithful to do what the Publisher asks, does it fairly well, and delivers the manuscript on time. The project is part of a new series of Bible studies designed along the lectio divina format and I enjoyed writing it. Romans came out last summer and missed my last year’s inventory list. Of course, I’m not a Bible expert, let alone a Romans expert. What I did was go to lunch with Ken Schenck (who is both a Bible expert and a Romans expert) for several weeks and pulled his trigger and let him talk for an hour while I scribbled furiously. Then I went and wrote that week’s assignment and scheduled another lunch before writing the next one. So blame Schenck for anything you don’t like in there and thank me for whatever you agree with ;-) Lectio Divina is a sort of fad in Bible study recently so if you are into Bible studies you might like this. It came out this year.
4. D-Series: Baptism and Communion
This was a fun write… part of a new discipleship series coming out by my publisher. About 7500 words… four “lessons.” I like curriculum writing. They tell you exactly what to write (e.g. “a 5-7 word title followed by 125-150 word introduction” or “50-175 word “to think about” paragraph” etc.) This sort of writing is “writing on demand.” You sit down and follow the directions… your “creativity” comes is in the way you write things, not in the design or format—that’s already done and you are expected to rigidly follow the format. This will be published in this coming year.
5. Light From the Word
Another write-on-demand assignment—a week’s worth of devotionals, all very short. The hard part of this kind of writing is writing so few words (only about 200-250 a day) and packing in something to “haunt” the reader all day (who often reads this in the morning during…well, in the morning). I enjoy this sort of writing and “my week” in Light from the Word will appear this coming December 13-19. (It will also appear online here)
6. Chapter—Classic Holiness Writings
Jeremy Summers and some other emerging ministers are putting together a book like Foster’s, only of classic holiness writings. I had William Law in this book and selected a section from Law’s A serious Call to a devout and Holy Life and wrote a short introduction to it. This was an easy assignment but it will be a neat book (Wesleyan Publishing House—this coming year). I forget the name of the book, but I’ll mention it when it comes out.
7. Chapter 3: the Church Jesus Builds
Wesleyan educators (VIA Kerry Kind, head of education for Wesleyans) and the Wesleyan Publishing House do one book a year written by Wesleyan educators to help and support pastors. Joe Coleson edits them (Nazarene Theological seminary). The first book focused on preaching. This second one was on ecclesiology and it came out this year. I did chapter 3 in this book—The Church is Holy. This is a neat book…and after the disastrous tragedy of Barna’s Revolution, a good ecclesiology cannot come too soon. It is now available, though I wrote my chapter last summer.
8. Chapter: new Holiness book
Part of the same series as above—this one comes out June ’08 in time for General Conference and the related colloquium on holiness at that time. Done by Wesleyan educators, I wrote the chapter this summer on Receiving holiness in this book.
9. Chapter: new Worship book.
A group of evangelical Worship educators are putting together this book that will be published by Abingdon this October under the title The Message in the Music(Amazon page). This book is edited by Robert H. Woods & Brian D. Walrath (Spring Arbor). It takes the most popular songs used in worship today (from CCLI license data) and asks what these teach. I wrote chapter 3 in this book— I’m Desperate for You: Male Perception of Romantic Lyrics in Contemporary Worship Music. With a qualitative study of young adult males, I studied how contemporary “love songs to Jesus” come across to young adult males. My chapter follows a wonderful chapter (I wish I had written it!) by Jenell Williams Paris on how worship songs tend to follow the model of God as the “leading man” and humans as the “leading lady,” all consummated by God scooping up the worshipper and “riding off together into the sunset.” When I read Janell’s chapter I gave up and tried to get out of this assignment…she said everything I wanted to say. However, Robert Woods suggested I test the effect on young adult males so I did the qualitative study. This book will rock the worship world when it arrives.
10. New book: Common Ground—where all Christians agree
My major writing this year has focused on this new book. I spent most every week writing on this new book (about 12 hours per week) and turned in draft 16 in August. It focuses on the unified doctrines that all Christians at all times and in places agree on—the Apostle’s Creed. Last year I read and researched all year and I did the writing this year. While it won’t come out for another year the writing is done. Now the editor does his work and the publisher decides what to call it and designs the cover etc. I’ll have to go over the edits and galleys through this coming year but the hardest work is done on this one now. It should be out by next summer. I’m really happy with it. It may be the most important book I’ve written (which doesn’t automatically transfer to making it the best selling, of course). I’ll keep you posted on its progress.
Well, I think that wraps up another year of writing. Of course it is not may “day job.” I do writing on the side… mostly from time I save from not watching TV, raising children or having any hobbies and free time through the school year. That is why I don’t write the Tuesday Column in the summers. I need summers to waste going backpacking, watching movies and fiddling around in my garage and garden. Summer is about to close and playtime is over… thus this inventory of the last years writing and publishing… now its time to get back to work.
--Keith Drury
August, 2007
2006-2007 School Year
Some of my Tuesday Column readers don’t know that it is my practice writing... most past students know that. To me, writing is like playing the piano—one gets better by practice. When you read my columns here (or on one of my other blogs) ..when people read my Tuesday Column or blogs they are peeking into my practice room. I make mistakes, write and revise even after they are posted. I’m often simply “doing runs” to keep my writing fingers nimble. All this is practice is for my serious “concert performance” –writing for books and curriculum.
I’ve just wrapped up another year of writing (September through August). I’ve completed my own inventory of the year’s writing and publishing and it is here I do an annual inventory mostly to keep myself motivated, like looking back at the grass you’ve already cut to know you’re getting something done. I know some budding writers read this column so I’m also being accountable to you. So, in case you are still reading this, here are some of the “concerts” I’ve written or published this year:
(the original inventory has books pictured --it is located here
1. Walking the Trail of Death
Published summer ‘07. During the spring I finished up my journal of last summer’s walk from Indiana to Kansas. It is a recounting of the story of the original journey of the "removal" of the Potawatomi Indians from Indiana to Kansas while blending in my own story as a white man’s re-tracing every foot of the 660 mile journey—I was the first white man to do so since 1838. Studying the original journals and letters as I walked, and often sleeping at their actual campsites I pondered larger issues of injustice, sin, restitution, and penance. I didn’t think this book was good enough to publish the regular route so I self-published it through LULU.com and it is available there if you want to know what I did last summer—click the picture to see the Lulu page.
2. Knowing God
This neat booklet came out this year. My publisher has a cool series for churches to hand out to people—sort of “evangelistic tracts” but done with real class—something you’d be proud to give a friend, not those cheap newsprint tracts that holler at unbelievers with a turn-or-burn style. Writing an easy-going friendly pocket booklet that would nudge an unbeliever toward God without beating them over the head was a cool challenge. I had a manuscript from 21 years ago that was still sitting in “inventory” so I got it out and reworked it for this booklet. My friend Chris Bounds was not real happy with it (it was too Quaker-ish for him) but no matter, I was happy with it, the publisher was happy, and the churches who are buying them in quantity seem happy so here it is—“what is written is written.”
3. Listening to God through Romans
This was a typical “writing assignment” someone gets who is faithful to do what the Publisher asks, does it fairly well, and delivers the manuscript on time. The project is part of a new series of Bible studies designed along the lectio divina format and I enjoyed writing it. Romans came out last summer and missed my last year’s inventory list. Of course, I’m not a Bible expert, let alone a Romans expert. What I did was go to lunch with Ken Schenck (who is both a Bible expert and a Romans expert) for several weeks and pulled his trigger and let him talk for an hour while I scribbled furiously. Then I went and wrote that week’s assignment and scheduled another lunch before writing the next one. So blame Schenck for anything you don’t like in there and thank me for whatever you agree with ;-) Lectio Divina is a sort of fad in Bible study recently so if you are into Bible studies you might like this. It came out this year.
4. D-Series: Baptism and Communion
This was a fun write… part of a new discipleship series coming out by my publisher. About 7500 words… four “lessons.” I like curriculum writing. They tell you exactly what to write (e.g. “a 5-7 word title followed by 125-150 word introduction” or “50-175 word “to think about” paragraph” etc.) This sort of writing is “writing on demand.” You sit down and follow the directions… your “creativity” comes is in the way you write things, not in the design or format—that’s already done and you are expected to rigidly follow the format. This will be published in this coming year.
5. Light From the Word
Another write-on-demand assignment—a week’s worth of devotionals, all very short. The hard part of this kind of writing is writing so few words (only about 200-250 a day) and packing in something to “haunt” the reader all day (who often reads this in the morning during…well, in the morning). I enjoy this sort of writing and “my week” in Light from the Word will appear this coming December 13-19. (It will also appear online here)
6. Chapter—Classic Holiness Writings
Jeremy Summers and some other emerging ministers are putting together a book like Foster’s, only of classic holiness writings. I had William Law in this book and selected a section from Law’s A serious Call to a devout and Holy Life and wrote a short introduction to it. This was an easy assignment but it will be a neat book (Wesleyan Publishing House—this coming year). I forget the name of the book, but I’ll mention it when it comes out.
7. Chapter 3: the Church Jesus Builds
Wesleyan educators (VIA Kerry Kind, head of education for Wesleyans) and the Wesleyan Publishing House do one book a year written by Wesleyan educators to help and support pastors. Joe Coleson edits them (Nazarene Theological seminary). The first book focused on preaching. This second one was on ecclesiology and it came out this year. I did chapter 3 in this book—The Church is Holy. This is a neat book…and after the disastrous tragedy of Barna’s Revolution, a good ecclesiology cannot come too soon. It is now available, though I wrote my chapter last summer.
8. Chapter: new Holiness book
Part of the same series as above—this one comes out June ’08 in time for General Conference and the related colloquium on holiness at that time. Done by Wesleyan educators, I wrote the chapter this summer on Receiving holiness in this book.
9. Chapter: new Worship book.
A group of evangelical Worship educators are putting together this book that will be published by Abingdon this October under the title The Message in the Music(Amazon page). This book is edited by Robert H. Woods & Brian D. Walrath (Spring Arbor). It takes the most popular songs used in worship today (from CCLI license data) and asks what these teach. I wrote chapter 3 in this book— I’m Desperate for You: Male Perception of Romantic Lyrics in Contemporary Worship Music. With a qualitative study of young adult males, I studied how contemporary “love songs to Jesus” come across to young adult males. My chapter follows a wonderful chapter (I wish I had written it!) by Jenell Williams Paris on how worship songs tend to follow the model of God as the “leading man” and humans as the “leading lady,” all consummated by God scooping up the worshipper and “riding off together into the sunset.” When I read Janell’s chapter I gave up and tried to get out of this assignment…she said everything I wanted to say. However, Robert Woods suggested I test the effect on young adult males so I did the qualitative study. This book will rock the worship world when it arrives.
10. New book: Common Ground—where all Christians agree
My major writing this year has focused on this new book. I spent most every week writing on this new book (about 12 hours per week) and turned in draft 16 in August. It focuses on the unified doctrines that all Christians at all times and in places agree on—the Apostle’s Creed. Last year I read and researched all year and I did the writing this year. While it won’t come out for another year the writing is done. Now the editor does his work and the publisher decides what to call it and designs the cover etc. I’ll have to go over the edits and galleys through this coming year but the hardest work is done on this one now. It should be out by next summer. I’m really happy with it. It may be the most important book I’ve written (which doesn’t automatically transfer to making it the best selling, of course). I’ll keep you posted on its progress.
Well, I think that wraps up another year of writing. Of course it is not may “day job.” I do writing on the side… mostly from time I save from not watching TV, raising children or having any hobbies and free time through the school year. That is why I don’t write the Tuesday Column in the summers. I need summers to waste going backpacking, watching movies and fiddling around in my garage and garden. Summer is about to close and playtime is over… thus this inventory of the last years writing and publishing… now its time to get back to work.
--Keith Drury
August, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
Paul & Brooke Kind Wedding Sermon
Lasting love
Paul and Brooke, from the beginning of scripture God has had plenty to say about the union of a man and woman in marriage. Marriage was established by God and God blesses marriage. Later on in this ceremony as your minister I will bless your marriage… Your parents have already blessed it and the entire body of friends and relatives have traveled here today to bless your marriage. Most of all in this ceremony today though, we will ask GOD to bless your union of love. It is love that will keep you together.
Back in 1975 when I was only married a half dozen years or so the number one hit song was by the Captain and Tennille “Love will keep us together.” They were right—it is love that will keeps your marriage together. But, what kind of love? That is my first question--what sort of love will keep you together?
It is not just chemistry-love. Recent science has shown there really is a chemical reaction in people “in love.” The chemical is adrenaline. It gives a jolt, a high, and makes the heart speed up and flutter. However. those same studies show that after about a year and a half the adrenaline quits spiking—what then? This kind of infatuation we call “Romantic love” or “puppy love” Lasting love is more than this chemical reaction producing attraction or desire. Passion passes—at least this initial kind of passion. Love is more than passionate feelings. So, what kind of love will keep you together all your lives.
Paul and Brooke, from the beginning of scripture God has had plenty to say about the union of a man and woman in marriage. Marriage was established by God and God blesses marriage. Later on in this ceremony as your minister I will bless your marriage… Your parents have already blessed it and the entire body of friends and relatives have traveled here today to bless your marriage. Most of all in this ceremony today though, we will ask GOD to bless your union of love. It is love that will keep you together.
Back in 1975 when I was only married a half dozen years or so the number one hit song was by the Captain and Tennille “Love will keep us together.” They were right—it is love that will keeps your marriage together. But, what kind of love? That is my first question--what sort of love will keep you together?
It is not just chemistry-love. Recent science has shown there really is a chemical reaction in people “in love.” The chemical is adrenaline. It gives a jolt, a high, and makes the heart speed up and flutter. However. those same studies show that after about a year and a half the adrenaline quits spiking—what then? This kind of infatuation we call “Romantic love” or “puppy love” Lasting love is more than this chemical reaction producing attraction or desire. Passion passes—at least this initial kind of passion. Love is more than passionate feelings. So, what kind of love will keep you together all your lives.
The answer is in the Bible, but first, let's consider some lines from “The Fiddler on the Roof” on the same subject. I’m sure you recall the story of the philosophical Russian milkman Tevya. Times were changing and that affected Tevya’s Jewish family traditions. Rather than using the traditional matchmaker’s arrangements, young people were now getting married out of love, including Tevya’s own daughters. It was a new idea—marrying out of love. The notion challenges Tevya and causes him to reflect on his own marriage.
One day Tevya asks his wife, “Golda, do you love me?”
Golda replies: “Do I what?”
T: “Do you love me?”
G: “Do I love you? With our daughters getting married and this trouble in the town, you’re upset, you’re worn out, go inside, go lie down, maybe its indigestion.”
T: “Oh, No Golda, “I’m asking you a question. Do you love me?”
G: “You’re a fool.”
T: “I know, but do you love me?”
G: “Do I love you? Well . . For twenty-five years I washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children, milked your cow. After twenty-five years why talk about love right now?”
T: “Golda, the first time I met you it was on our wedding day. I was scared.”
G: “I was shy.”
T:“I was nervous.”
G: “So was I.”
T: “But my father and mother said we’d learn to love each other and now I’m asking, Golda, ‘Do you love me?’”
G: “I’m your wife.”
T: “I know, but do you love me?”
G: “Do I love him? For twenty five years I lived with him, fought with him, starved with him, twenty-five years my bed is his, If that’s not love, what is?”
T: “Then you love me.”
G: “I suppose I do.”
T: “And I suppose I love you too. It doesn’t change a thing, but even so, after twenty-five years it’s nice to know.”
__________________
Golda’s kind of love is often dismissed by today’s feeling oriented, adrenaline-addicted world. We think she needs a lesson in loving. But Golda was actually closer to the Bible’s view of love than we think. IN the Bible loving is action. It is put this way in 1 Corinthians 13…
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Corinthians 13: 4-6)
The Bible agrees with Golda’s view: love is more than a feeling—it is action. Love is a commitment to act lovingly. Love might begin with feelings of attraction and pulsating bursts of adrenaline but it continues by commitment and loving actions. Lasting love involves making meals, washing the dishes, repairing the car and taking out the garbage. It has periods of passion but it also sometimes has periods of routine. Marital love of the lasting variety is a commitment to love another person in this way for life. The way you will put that in the vows you wrote to say in a moment is, “wherever our journey takes us; in plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; as long as we both shall live.”
Too many believe romantic love automatically brings the lasting kind of love the Bible speaks of. It opens the doorway to it, but does not make it happen automatically. Lasting love requires work. And it works only as you work it. Real love takes effort.
Paul and Brooke, we pray that you will work at being patient and kind, not being envious or rude or arrogant. We pray you will daily work to not insist on your own way, to not to be irritable or resentful. Some days you will have to work harder than others, but we pray you will make this Job #1 for the rest of your lives.
This kind of love—lasting love—will keep you together in the future. Your commitment today is not just about your past or present feelings. It is a commitment to action in the future—a commitment to work at really loving and to keep doing those kinds of things wherever your journey takes you. That is my first point: today you are committing to working at loving --really loving, the lasting kind of love that will keep you together...and keep working at it throughout all your entire lives.
My second point is to remind you where you will get this kind of love. There is only one way to have a marriage made in heaven. That is to draw on God’s power for loving. God is the Source of lasting love. Your love for each other—real love—is but a reflection of God’s great love for each of you. The writer of I John said it this way: My dear friends, let us love one another,because the source of love is God.This is what love really is: not that we have loved God,but that God loved us first.
Your love is not self-created—not real love. Real lasting love comes from God who first loved us—with real love, of the lasting variety. The vows you exchange today are not just between the two of you, or even between you, the state, and this gathered group. You have made God a witness and your view are made in the presence of the God who will enble you to keep on loving.
All of us here today want you to be more in love in ten and 20 and 40 years from now than you are today The Captain and Tennille still are together in their 60’s… and they are still singing love songs to each other (though I don’t expect people under to 40 to know this). We here expect Godly love—the lasting kind—to be even more true of you, Paul and Brooke in the future as your love grows. We know you are committed not only to each other but to God the Source of lasting love. This is the kind of loving marriage God blesses. Your lifelong commitment tis what we come here today to bless along with God.
Paul and Brooke… we all love you. And our prayer for you today and throughout your marriage is found in Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 3: 12
"May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you."
Keith Drury
August 10, 2007
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Family update
A bit of family news from my family this summer:
DAVID
Dave is now executive pastor at College Wesleyan in Marion. They are living in a rental while they build a new house. We'll get to see Dave and Kathy (and their kids--Max, Karina and Lauren) more now.
JOHN
John and Mandy are pregnant with a little boy, due just before Christmas. Both of them are now in the PhD program at Princeton--he is in theology she is in youth ministry.
SHARON
Sharon loves he new "dream job" teaching in the doctoral program in leadership at IWU...and to boot she has most of July and August off... which is why we're heading our next week for a hundred miles of hiking on the Colorado Trail before school starts again.
DAVID
Dave is now executive pastor at College Wesleyan in Marion. They are living in a rental while they build a new house. We'll get to see Dave and Kathy (and their kids--Max, Karina and Lauren) more now.
JOHN
John and Mandy are pregnant with a little boy, due just before Christmas. Both of them are now in the PhD program at Princeton--he is in theology she is in youth ministry.
SHARON
Sharon loves he new "dream job" teaching in the doctoral program in leadership at IWU...and to boot she has most of July and August off... which is why we're heading our next week for a hundred miles of hiking on the Colorado Trail before school starts again.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Bourne made me sick
The Bourne Ultimatum made me sick—literally. It was a great movie I think--but the hand-held herky-jerky camera style and the constant out-of-focus panning of the camera r(especially during the action shots--which are 95% of the movie) was actually nauseating to me—I almost used the popcorn bag as an air sickness bag. I sat too far up front for this movie. I finally had to start closing my eyes periodically to get reoriented (which made me realize there was virtually no dialogue to listen to).
If you go to Bourne show up early and get seats in the back row if you have any tendencies at all to get carsick. Or maybe take a Dramamine before you show up.
If they do a Bourne IV I hope they drop the Buffy-style camera work… I want to watch Bourne be disoriented, not get disoriented myself!
After the movie I started the book which I got for my birthday from my son, John... and the book is superb. Indeed, the plot of the whole series is great--I discover "who I am'" from looking to the past... "identity is found in memory." What a great truth for the "holiness movement" who has apparently gone through a similar experience as Bourne. Great book. I bet I would have loved the movie more if I had sat in the back seat.
If you go to Bourne show up early and get seats in the back row if you have any tendencies at all to get carsick. Or maybe take a Dramamine before you show up.
If they do a Bourne IV I hope they drop the Buffy-style camera work… I want to watch Bourne be disoriented, not get disoriented myself!
After the movie I started the book which I got for my birthday from my son, John... and the book is superb. Indeed, the plot of the whole series is great--I discover "who I am'" from looking to the past... "identity is found in memory." What a great truth for the "holiness movement" who has apparently gone through a similar experience as Bourne. Great book. I bet I would have loved the movie more if I had sat in the back seat.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Wind River Mountains
(CLICK ANY PICTURE FOR LARGER VIEW)
I just returned last night from a week of backpacking in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, on the Continental Divide Trail. What a grand hike it was. I walked with two great hiking companions:
Burt Webb is a biology prof here at IWU and has hiked with me almost every summer somewhere or another for a week—he is the guy who often just shows up and joins me for a week somewhere along the trail so we are long time hiking friends. Also along this time was Mason, Burt’s son who is in High School. Mason had pity on my old age and carried 6 pounds of my weight for me which made the trek much easier for me (and also made him wait less time for me to catch up at the tops of high mountains passes!).
We started at the Big Sandy Trailhead at the Southern end of the Winds and spent almost all of our time above the timberline, which in the Wind River Mountains is often below 10,000 feet. The Winds give that High Sierra feeling without having to go much above 11,000’ so we had no elevation sickness this time.
We followed various trails (mostly the Highline Trail and the Freemont Trail) which the CDT is proposed to follow some day when the CDT actually becomes the CDT. The only evidence of the CDT we actually found was a tiny CDT carved into one of the signs by a thru-hiker though. The Continental Divide Trail is still a concept in many places—a trail-to-become. But with Mason’s good map-reading and trail-finding skills we only got “lost” a few times. On one of these “lost” episodes we “simply followed a creek” to where we were supposed to be—which meant scaling a 40’ high wall which brought back memories of my 1960’s rock-climbing days—but Burt scrambled up declaring it was a “piece of cake’ so I
dutifully followed (it was only a 5.6 or 5.7 cliff BUT it dropped directly into a raging river rapids at the bottom which made it seem worse.) Burt was right—and we got back on the trail again.
We saw a bunch of wildlife including moose but no actual bears,
(though we saw their tracks and hung our food each night). The biggest joy for me was hiking above timberline so much—I love high mountains. Of course, since the snowmelt was right at its end the Mosquitoes were right at their zenith.
After the Winds we entered a section of more conventional CDT running up toward Yellowstone. I was less excited about this section of CDT—it was more like much of the CDT I’ve already experienced—which is “Where’s the Trail?” hiking—we traversed miles and miles of open sagebrush with nary a sign or path (can YOU find the path in after clicking this picture?).
That’s bugs me about the CDT…somehow I prefer hiking a trail that is an actual trail not merely a “route.”
Burt Webb is a biology prof here at IWU and has hiked with me almost every summer somewhere or another for a week—he is the guy who often just shows up and joins me for a week somewhere along the trail so we are long time hiking friends. Also along this time was Mason, Burt’s son who is in High School. Mason had pity on my old age and carried 6 pounds of my weight for me which made the trek much easier for me (and also made him wait less time for me to catch up at the tops of high mountains passes!).We started at the Big Sandy Trailhead at the Southern end of the Winds and spent almost all of our time above the timberline, which in the Wind River Mountains is often below 10,000 feet. The Winds give that High Sierra feeling without having to go much above 11,000’ so we had no elevation sickness this time.
We followed various trails (mostly the Highline Trail and the Freemont Trail) which the CDT is proposed to follow some day when the CDT actually becomes the CDT. The only evidence of the CDT we actually found was a tiny CDT carved into one of the signs by a thru-hiker though. The Continental Divide Trail is still a concept in many places—a trail-to-become. But with Mason’s good map-reading and trail-finding skills we only got “lost” a few times. On one of these “lost” episodes we “simply followed a creek” to where we were supposed to be—which meant scaling a 40’ high wall which brought back memories of my 1960’s rock-climbing days—but Burt scrambled up declaring it was a “piece of cake’ so I
dutifully followed (it was only a 5.6 or 5.7 cliff BUT it dropped directly into a raging river rapids at the bottom which made it seem worse.) Burt was right—and we got back on the trail again.We saw a bunch of wildlife including moose but no actual bears,
(though we saw their tracks and hung our food each night). The biggest joy for me was hiking above timberline so much—I love high mountains. Of course, since the snowmelt was right at its end the Mosquitoes were right at their zenith.After the Winds we entered a section of more conventional CDT running up toward Yellowstone. I was less excited about this section of CDT—it was more like much of the CDT I’ve already experienced—which is “Where’s the Trail?” hiking—we traversed miles and miles of open sagebrush with nary a sign or path (can YOU find the path in after clicking this picture?).
That’s bugs me about the CDT…somehow I prefer hiking a trail that is an actual trail not merely a “route.” When we got to the big re-supply city in the area (Dubois, Wyoming population 991) on Tuesday we ate a huge breakfast then thumbed for a few hours before a guy let us ride in the back of his pickup over the mountains three hours to the Jackson Hole airport where we rented a car for a day (and the 300 mile round trip) back to our car at the south end of the Winds. Hitching all the way back to our car was not likely since we had parked it at a dead end dirt road several hours up in remote mountain. We got the car and Burt and Mason followed me back to the airport to drop off the one-day rental then drive the 1500 miles back to Indiana with happy memories of the Wind River Mountains.
The Thru-hikers on the CDT consider the Winds the highlight of the CDT (like the PCT hikers consider the High Sierras the highlight of that trail). So I have cherry-picked the CDT now—the Colorado section and the Winds are the brightest “Cherries” on the CDT tree (which has plenty of barren branches).
I had three goals for this hike. 1)To enjoy Burt and Mason’s company—hiking with people you like makes a hike good (accomplished: Burt is always a pleasant companion and Mason is an unusually likable and mature teenager and he took all these pictures too). 2) Finish the Wind River range, considered one of the “ten best hikes in America (Accomplished and I agree-they are equivalent to the High Sierras, in some ways better) 3)Decide if I want to consider hiking the whole CDT (Accomplished: I do not want to do the CDT except the cherry-picking areas like the Winds and Colorado. I’ve decided to cherry-pick the best hiking sections of trails until I’m 70.
Next week Sharon and I are going to Hawaii for the rest of the month. Then in August we’re both going to join Phil Woodbury and Kerry Kind for a week on the CDT in Colorado (Salida to Creede) then back to school.
Next year I will probably return and do the Wind River Mountains over again, this time with Sharon and we’ll walk slower. Now I’m feeling that we did too many 20+ mile days this time—Sharon and I will do 10-12 mile days next summer I think, and take time to drink in more of the views, and cook delicious meals—I “ate shakes” this time and didn’t cook. We’ll enjoy cooking again I think, though we’ll have to do that away from camp due to the bears.
I’ve got the “triple crown” off my back now. I do not plan to add the CDT to the AT and PCT. Rather, I’ll return to the “best hikes in America” list and finish that off. I still want to do the “cross the Great Divide” in the Canadian Rockies near Banff. And there is that section of the Superior Trail I need to get under my belt too. As far as the Appalachian Trail I already did a re-hike of all of New Hampshire with Phil, Josh Jackson and Justin Johnson a few years ago though I need to return and do the Kathdin section with Sharon some time soon. I’d like to return to the High Sierras and do the John Muir section of the PCT again, along with doing the Cascades again in snow (Canada south thru Northern Washington state—the section I did with Mark and Rudy). And there are some trails in South America to do, and Sharon has been wanting to do the West Highland Way in Scotland—so I might do that again with her this time.
A new factor for me is Sharon’s now job teaching in the Doctoral program where she gets July and August off each year. She is not a long distance hiker (though she did one hike of 1000 miles with me on the AT). Now, she prefers a week at a time—and I find that at the same time I am now preferring that length hike too—just a hundred miles or so at a whack. So I’m gonna’ make a new list and pick all the cherries I can until I’m 70. What then? Well, there’s always canoeing and kayaking—you can do that until you’re 90!
The Thru-hikers on the CDT consider the Winds the highlight of the CDT (like the PCT hikers consider the High Sierras the highlight of that trail). So I have cherry-picked the CDT now—the Colorado section and the Winds are the brightest “Cherries” on the CDT tree (which has plenty of barren branches).
I had three goals for this hike. 1)To enjoy Burt and Mason’s company—hiking with people you like makes a hike good (accomplished: Burt is always a pleasant companion and Mason is an unusually likable and mature teenager and he took all these pictures too). 2) Finish the Wind River range, considered one of the “ten best hikes in America (Accomplished and I agree-they are equivalent to the High Sierras, in some ways better) 3)Decide if I want to consider hiking the whole CDT (Accomplished: I do not want to do the CDT except the cherry-picking areas like the Winds and Colorado. I’ve decided to cherry-pick the best hiking sections of trails until I’m 70.
Next week Sharon and I are going to Hawaii for the rest of the month. Then in August we’re both going to join Phil Woodbury and Kerry Kind for a week on the CDT in Colorado (Salida to Creede) then back to school.
Next year I will probably return and do the Wind River Mountains over again, this time with Sharon and we’ll walk slower. Now I’m feeling that we did too many 20+ mile days this time—Sharon and I will do 10-12 mile days next summer I think, and take time to drink in more of the views, and cook delicious meals—I “ate shakes” this time and didn’t cook. We’ll enjoy cooking again I think, though we’ll have to do that away from camp due to the bears.
I’ve got the “triple crown” off my back now. I do not plan to add the CDT to the AT and PCT. Rather, I’ll return to the “best hikes in America” list and finish that off. I still want to do the “cross the Great Divide” in the Canadian Rockies near Banff. And there is that section of the Superior Trail I need to get under my belt too. As far as the Appalachian Trail I already did a re-hike of all of New Hampshire with Phil, Josh Jackson and Justin Johnson a few years ago though I need to return and do the Kathdin section with Sharon some time soon. I’d like to return to the High Sierras and do the John Muir section of the PCT again, along with doing the Cascades again in snow (Canada south thru Northern Washington state—the section I did with Mark and Rudy). And there are some trails in South America to do, and Sharon has been wanting to do the West Highland Way in Scotland—so I might do that again with her this time.
A new factor for me is Sharon’s now job teaching in the Doctoral program where she gets July and August off each year. She is not a long distance hiker (though she did one hike of 1000 miles with me on the AT). Now, she prefers a week at a time—and I find that at the same time I am now preferring that length hike too—just a hundred miles or so at a whack. So I’m gonna’ make a new list and pick all the cherries I can until I’m 70. What then? Well, there’s always canoeing and kayaking—you can do that until you’re 90!
Great Hike Burt & Mason--thanks for being such good hiking companions!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Back from Turkey
I'm Back from Turkey now where I wandered Paul's missionary journeys and the sites of the first seven councils of the church with my two sins, Dave and John. Our bags never arrived so we did the trip with our carry-on stuff and no sleeping bags. After 3000 Kilometers on a rental car (with $10 gal gas) we returned to Istanbul and flew home to America labeling this father-sons trip our best ever. (We go every other year on some sort of father-sons trip) .
Right now I'm doing rewrite on the Apostle's Creed book--I'm on draft 7 today and plan to get a few more drafts in before next week when I leave for two weeks in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains with But and Mason Webb. While I'm gone a dozen "manuscript readers" (Lay person, Bible scholars, young person etc) will read draft 10.
When I return form the Wind River mountains we head out the next day for Hawaii and our 30th anniversary celebration.
The first week of August I complete the last 5 drafts of the Creed book and send it in, then head out to Paul Kind and Brook's wedding on our way to the end-of-summer faculty backpacking trip on the Colorado trail then back in time for Faculty retreat.
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