i don't like it when someone asks me how it's going and, upon hearing my response of "i'm way too busy," say something completely inane, like, "well, busy is good..."

i mean, sure, i suppose busy is better than sitting around doing nothing, but i don't think most people grasp how utterly over-committed kirstin and i are right now. there is such a thing as trying to do too much at once and we're proof that it's not a good idea. most of the time we're just completely exhausted.

in the next month, i have to finish one of the most difficult college semesters i've ever experienced, we have to finish development on the cultureVision web site, get a road journal sent out to the mailing list, prepare for the calvin faith & writing conference, continue running the store, work part-time at the church and a whole bunch of other stuff i'm sure i'll completely forget about until right before they need to be finished. i get stressed out just thinking about out.

but what do we need to do to change our lives so they are not ridiculously out of balance?

well, we're starting a much-needed fundraiser for *cino this week (if we can manage to finally get the road journal out the door), which, while adding to our tasks at the moment, will hopefully alleviate a few committments by allowing kirstin to quit her part-time job at the church. we'll be adding some stuff to the site soon that will explain everything in more detail.

and we're hoping to get some sort of internship program off the ground so that other people can come along side us for year-long stints that will help *cino operate more fluidly and spread the workload out a little better. we'll let you know about that, too, when it's ready.

as rob already mentioned in his post about the Jubilee Conference, Luci Shaw talked extensively about journaling as a spiritual discipline, not long after Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Books talked about reading as a spiritual discipline--both struck me as interesting ways of thinking about these activities. and i was inspired to take more seriously these disciplines as they relate directly to my calling.

even though we run *cino and i churn out a piece of writing at least every other week for catapult, i feel as though i haven't been very faithful in my growing activities (disciplines) lately. I'm not sure what the root cause of this neglect is, but the conference certainly inspired both of us. we're talking about constructing a moderately formal "course" for ourselves this summer (syllabus and all) to catch up on all of the cultural engagement books we should have read a long time ago.

i've chided myself lately as being self-pitying and stubborn in my dim view of our efforts, but i finally feel as though i'm beginning to rediscover joy and gratitude in my work...knock on wood?

well, at the behest of gideon strauss, i've decided to blog about our experiences this past weekend at the coalition for christian outreach jubilee conference (which, if i were a good blogger, i would do anyway). the cco's mission is to "transform college students to transform the world," which makes the organization a kindred spirit of *cino. needless to say, then, we were in great company.

we had a display table (which helped bring interested parties to us), but what was especially helpful was having our friends sarah landini and hank suhr there to introduce us to several incredible, reformational people working with or around the cco. people like byron borger of hearts and minds books and stephen lazarus from the center for public justice (though our relationship with gideon helped a bit on that one).

in fact, at one point we were sitting in a bar with sarah, pete (sarah's husband), stephen, hank, bill perkins (cco alumnus), pam trondson and graeme burk from ics, and anna lensink and brian dijkema from the student solidarity local at redeemer university college. it was amazing to be surrounded by so many people with a shared passion for transforming the world. my spirit is always simultaneously lifted up and humbled after such experiences.

we did attend a small group seminar with luci shaw about writing which convinced me that i need to learn and develop the discipline of journaling. as you can probably guess from this blog, i'm not very good at keeping up with that sort of thing. we also sat in on one keynote address by lakita garth, but, for reasons i don't feel like exploring yet, i wasn't all that impressed.