All of my progressive Christian blogger colleagues, and all of my old seminary friends are in church this morning, celebrating, in one way or another, the literal, or metaphorical, or the somewhere-in-between resurrection of Jesus. I'm sitting in my hotel room, after 4 long days of being at a conference, doing a lot of thinking.

... is that the question?

Photo by QFamily

It's been an interesting week, settling in. We got our stuff in the house under the wire, and the relocubes are sitting in the snow, waiting for them to be picked up. My laptop died, causing major angst (I'm using Ruth's computer now.) I'm getting used to seeing the area from Ruth's eyes (she says it's like a theme park for alternative types - all the groovy people at the North Leverett Co-op, the guy selling the futon has pictures of his guru, and the guy selling the hot tub is a crystal healer.)

We've arrived in Massachusetts last weekend, and, finally, we're unpacking. We made it under the wire - unpacked the “relocubes” before the big snow came. We're nice and cozy in our house, unpacking the zillions of boxes. We don't have much furniture - and we had hoped to do some furniture shopping today - but we're not going anywhere.

Mystics of all times and all places have often had one thing in common: they have isolated themselves in some way or another from the world. Some, like Catholic cloistered orders, or Buddhist monks, depend on the community to provide them the basics. Sometimes, they do provide themselves the basics, by growing gardens or the like. But most mystics over time have lived apart in some ways or another from “regular” daily life.

It's been a fairly grueling trip - as well as a deep and wonderful trip. We didn't get a chance to have internet access quite so often, so it's been a few days since I've had a chance to blog. I'm uploading a few new pictures to flickr - but be patient - I'm on dial up! We decided not to stop in New Orleans after all, so we cut our trip short by a day or two (although it had been lengthened by a day or two by the weather in New Mexico and Texas.)

I'm in San Antonio, Texas, warm and dry at a friend of Ruth's. We've had a great, but too brief visit, and we'll be on our way to New Orleans this afternoon - a short driving day today, after a harried day in really bad traffic in West Texas. The pictures of some of it are now up on flickr - so you can get a feeling for what we've been through.

We'll be in New Orleans on Thursday, and in North Carolina sometime over the weekend.

It's been an adventure!

It's been a trip so far full of adventures, and things that are new to me. After Mercey Hot Springs and seeing dear friends in Idyllwild, we drove on I-10 through Arizona and New Mexico, and stopped for a brief soak at El Dorado Hot Springs, in Tonopah, AZ. It was great - we had a private pool, and we spent a nice hour in the early evening before heading back on the road for a stint.

Well, there was a storm in Southern New Mexico. We woke up to a few inches of snow, and expected some slow driving, but we didn't quite expect them to close Interstate 10. So, we're stuck in Deming, New Mexico. It's not terrible, though. We're staying at a chain hotel, with really good WiFi, and it's amazing how easy it is to keep occupied when stuck in a hotel room with nowhere to go.

We expect to get back on the road tomorrow, heading to San Antonio, to visit a friend of Ruth's, then off from there to New Orleans.