Welcome to my three day blogging hiatus. This morning I am heading off with the rest of The Hope Center staff to go on a three day silence and solitude retreat. We go on a handful of single day retreats throughout the year, and take an extended one between our two semesters. Last year it was in January, which made my schedule feel very claustrophobic as we we had a ton of stuff to do to get ready for the fall semester, so this year we tried moving it to January. While it does mean I'm missing out on a Christmas party tonight and will find myself a little bit behind on holiday travel preparations when I return later in the week, it is nice to have a little advent listening break. It should be good

Thus, no blogs until Thursday. I will have a good deal of reading and writing to do when I get back, I'm sure.

Before I go, let us celebrate this day. After three putrid years of basketball, preceded by four mediocre years, I do believe my beloved Portland Trail Blazers are turning things around. They have won 7 games in a row, they are at .500 1/4 of the way into the season, and they are doing it without Greg Oden and with a bunch of upstanding citizens. I don't know if they will still be over .500 when I reemerge later this week, so I just thought I'd chronicle this moment for us all.

Fair Dinkum