So much for the best-laid plans ... I opted to switch out "Acts for Everyone" with Daniel Berrigan's "The Kings and Their Gods." Still going with Ken Wilson's "Jesus Brand Spirituality," though. I should probably know better than to decide on what I'm getting a week in advance, but I suspect the experiment will continue unabated.

A belated note from last weekend's service. I'm still recovering from one of the laziest weekends I've had in a while. Had to catch up with an old friend after church Saturday night. For that and other reasons, the weekend sleep schedule got entirely off track. About all I remember doing Sunday was waking up late, turning on the TV, forcing myself out for a late-lunch/early dinner ... and then trying to get back to sleep so the biological ticker didn't get all whacky during the work week. The result is that I got precious little done over the weekend and ended up waiting till Monday to sit through the Sunday service recording (couldn't pick up Saturday night online upstairs).

Compounding matters is that I'm still adding to the podcast routine. It used to be an easy task to get through my weekly listening. Greg Boyd on Monday, Rob Bell on Monday or Tuesday, and Joel Hunter whenever his is posted (usually Tuesday). I've added Rich Nathan and his church's Sunday night podcast to the routine and I'm enjoying them enough to consider them permanent additions. And when time permits, I'll add Ann Arbor Vineyards' podcast on any given week. So far, that's going so-so.

Beyond that, I'm adding a few particular off-wing selections to basically catch up with how the other half lives. In other words, some podcasts that I thoroughly disagree with on a variety of levels ... yet concern myself enough with to see what their logic is. Doubt I'll stick with it forever, but I consider it a good enough practice to engage in that if I ever drop listening to them, they'll just get replaced with someone of a similar ilk down the road.

Taking things to an exponential level, I'm technically in the midst of four books right now. That's not something I advocate anyone doing. Just about done with Barack Obama's "Audacity of Hope," halfway through with a friends' book on internet politics, and just perused my two new arrivals - both of which look like quick reads and tempt me on an hourly basis to see if I can run through them in one sitting.

And through it all ... I'm still forcing myself to pen the occasional two-cents worth of thought here on the ol' blog.

So, Wednesday ... April Simons comes back home for a visit and has a new book to show & tell:

If that doesn't look interesting enough to stop everything for and give a listen to, I don't know what else to throw your way ;-)