Preacher or Storyteller?

Imagine entering church on Sunday morning and instead of the traditional scripture reading and sermon, there would be a time for story. The
pastor, or someone else would come to the front of the sanctuary and tell the congregation a story. It could be a story from the bible, a folktale, a story by another writer, a story that the individual had written, fictional or true.

What would be your reaction? Have you ever had a similar experience in church? Would it add to your Sunday morning experience? Would it change
how you saw church or the bible? Would it impact you more personally?

Kerouac Unedited?

According to Boing Boing, Unedited 'On The Road' is to be published! In my opinion, this could be some of the greatest news this year.

It seems to carry a lot of wonderful potential if it's published right:

The scroll contains numerous passages that were edited out of the book and uses the original names of characters who were closely modeled on friends of Kerouac, including fellow writers William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg...

It remains to be seen exactly how (publisher Viking Penguin) will present the original Kerouac story, which was typed as one freewheeling, single-spaced paragraph.

It might be sacrilegious, but just in case, pray that literary history will be preserved, and that Viking will print this novel in its original form, real names and all, as Kerouac intended.

A Doped Up Mennonite?

Tour de France winner Floyd Landis recently failed a doping test. If it turns out that he was cheating, he'll have some explaining to do, and not only to race officials. 

Landis, who was raised conservative Mennonite, no doubt grew up hearing the maxim of Jesus that Anabaptists love so much: "Let your yes be yes and your no be no." It seems hard to exempt doping from such truthful living.

On Thursday, NPR's Day to Day quoted Landis's mother as saying that if he broke any rules, he doesn't deserve to win. 

Landis, you've already accomplished so much beyond the family farm and church. Just don't let this journey take you too far. 

It's not only for the sport, but for the already waning integrity of the great big family that is Anabaptism that I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the test results to be false positives.