I'm actually working on a real, live post - oh frabjous day, callou, callay! Or something like that. Anyway - I think perhaps something has shaken loose and the brain juices are flowing. More on that later. In the meantime, two must-reads that I stumbled upon lately:

• Michael Kruse has a truly excellent post on Emergent and the new religious left. The challenge that he offers: "I will know we have a truly emerging leader when he or she gives a press conference and neither Jim Edgar nor Jim Dobson are thrilled to be standing behind him or her." And be sure to read the comments.
• Andrew Jones has a fantastic post on the use of language among emerging folks. Great, great discussion about how the boundaries for language have shifted, and he makes a point that I've often thought needs to be emphasized - what is happening in western culture, broadly speaking, is a shift in sensibilities so that new norms are being created. It's not that any language is now considered appropriate - it's rather that language that is used to exclude and marginalize is being rejected instead of the more traditional taboos.

I don't do this very often, but these two posts in particular caught my attention and deserve a bit of reflection.