A Letter to a Soldier I Love

Not knowing for certain the security aspects of it all, I'll leave the names out of this. But here is the text of a letter I just wrote. I know that many people have loved ones in combat in Iraq, so I thought this might turn out to be something of an encouragement to someone else if I were to share it.

Besides, if I've forgotten something major since my introduction to Biblical Backgrounds nearly two decades ago, it will doubtless give someone great pleasure to point out my archaeological ignorance!

Dear _____________,

FOB Kalsu lies just south of a canal, if Google Earth is correct, not far southeast of Al-Iskandariyah. It is a very historic place that you occupy.

Somewhere nearby, perhaps under your very feet (for the site has never been excavated or even located yet), is Agade, the great city of Sargon the Great, ruler of Akkad, conqueror of the Sumerians and eventually many others. As far as we know, Sargon was among the very first persons in human history to build anything resembling an empire. He reigned the territory from as far as Turkey to Oman. He lived and reigned sometime around 2300 BC. So, for at least 3,000 years the soldiers of great empires have stood where you stand and have carried some sort of a weapon.

A mere eighteen miles south of you is ancient Babylon. This was the civilization that built old Babylon and Ur. Long afterwards the Neo-Babylonian Empire under the capable hand of Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in 587 BC and carried away men like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Ezekiel into captivity.

Somewhere in your vicinity is the likely location of the Plain of Dura, where the three resolute young men refused to bow to the great statue and found themselves in a fiery furnace, yet very much alive. You may find yourself wondering whether the furnace is still burning when the Summer comes in full force. I hear that the sand in Iskandariyah is fine enough to make most barriers permeable to it and coarse enough to make any garment uncomfortable.

Approximately twenty miles north of you was the Nahr Malcha (if its ancient location is that described by Xenophon in the Anabasis), Nebuchadnezzar's great canal between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Many scholars believe that this was the body of water identified by Ezekiel as the "River Chebar" where he saw a vision of God in his great battle chariot and received a great many revelations from God.

So, ___________, although you will likely feel very far from home at some point before this thing is concluded, you actually stand in a spot that is the home of much of your faith—the ancestral lands of your spiritual family long-long ago. My prayer for you is that you will know the supernatural protection of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; the dogged commitment to your faith in a foreign land of Daniel; and the bewildering and awe-inspiring encounters of Ezekiel with a very real God. He can find you there; He knows the area well.

Love in Christ,
Bart

Beginning to Serve: The Greatest Promotion

Today I depart for Northeast Arkansas and my niece's sixteenth birthday celebration. This will also be my last opportunity to visit my nephew, 2nd Lieut. Alex B. Smith, before he reports for duty in Iraq. The photograph is from Alex's graduation ceremonies at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

I went to visit Alex on post a year and a half ago. The commuter rail line runs today on the opposite bank of the Hudson from West Point, but from the Garrison station you can look across the river and see the old train platform. As I sat outside and sipped from a bottle of water, idly gazing across the river while awaiting the train, I couldn't help but think of all of the boys who had disembarked at that very platform down through the years. The Pattons and Lees and Eisenhowers went on from there to greatness. Many others, no doubt, served their country just as faithfully, albeit without the same level of recognition. Many paid the ultimate price of service.

Some call graduation from West Point "the greatest demotion of your life." West Point students regularly entertain grandees and receive VIP treatment on tours of Washington, New York, etc. Then they graduate to become lowly 2nd Lieutenants. Or so some people say.

In my opinion, it is no demotion to move into a place of service. My nephew will soon be leading men, perhaps in combat. It will be his responsibility to keep men safe, to help men grow, and otherwise to serve them while leading them. I'll repeat what I've said before: I'm proud of him. He could have gone anywhere, but he chose military service in the post-9-11 era. He and his comrades in our all-volunteer army are heroes—every last one of them—and I'm very excited about spending a few hours with him before he goes.

Our Personal Web Site

The Winter 2009 edition of the Southwestern News was dedicated entirely to adoption. Toward the back of the issue you may have noticed the article "As Miraculous as Childbirth" telling the story of how God placed our children into our family.

The major source of the written article was the material published on our personal web site. I can't recall whether I've ever mentioned it here before. It provides some information about us, some information about adoption in general, and several movies and photo albums. You'll find us at www.BartAndTracy.com.

Enjoy, and God bless!

Something Neat Happened at Church Today

Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of FBC Farmersville's native sons, Dick Baker, when he slipped into the back row. Dick's beloved wife Ann passed away not long ago, and this is his first Christmas without her. He decided in the midst of this season to come back home today.

After I finished welcoming everyone, I went back to Dick and asked him whether he'd like to sing something for us. He replied, "I'd like to do whatever you want me to do." So, although the service was already full to overflowing, when next I stepped behind the pulpit I announced that Dick Baker was going to favor us with a song. He stepped up to the piano, and just like that, brought us something wonderful. It was eloquent, Christ-centered, and entirely appropriate both to the Sunday before Christmas and our Lord's Supper celebration. And he did that with about three minutes' notice.

So I'm here hoping that, should the Lord favor me to live that long, I will be the kind of person who still has something worthwhile to say before God's people at the drop of a hat.

Thoughts from a Man Who Can't Stop Thinking

My brain will not let go of those terrible few moments on Thursday afternoon when our car collided with Nicholas Scroggs. I drove back over to the scene today because there were questions rattling around in there that just needed answering. Maybe it's the weirdo Ph.D. in me: What do you do with a problem? You research it. Then you write about it.

Here goes therapy.

So, I went back to do my research today. I tracked down where he would have started his journey on foot. I followed the route up to where the path to the Interstate diverged from the path to the underpass and associated sidewalk—the safe route. I located his house, which was his destination. The safe way was clearly, undeniably, unmistakably, inexplicably the shortest way home. He went out of his way to go across the Interstate, apparently for no other reason than to go across the Interstate.

So much of this I just couldn't see while sitting on the side of the highway. But I went back to that vantage point as well. I picked out the spot where I'm pretty sure he started his run. I noted where I believe that the impact took place. Then that horrible spot where I sat and held his hand.

It's a morality play—that's what it is. And the gospel is right there underneath it. There's the beauty of man, created in the image of God. The last moments of Nicholas Scroggs were beautiful. Even juxtaposed against all of my terror and all of my frantic action, he could have been running for Olympic gold. His stride was perfect. That backpack trailing in the wind. In any other place, at any other time, under any other circumstances, we all would have stood to applaud the sheer athletic grace and beauty and youth and vigor that he displayed. How magnificent! For a moment, it almost felt like he belonged there and the cars were intruding.

That's part of what haunts me so much. The pure vitality of the life that ended with my involvement was on such glorious display right before me in those final moments. Juxtaposed against the horrible images that I see when I lie down at night, I also see his final vigorous moments when he was so alive.

He never saw me. He never looked my direction. There was no expression of fear or hesitation. I really don't think he ever knew.

Alongside the beauty of man, there's our temptation, our spirit of thrill-seeking rebellion, and our fatal flaw. I've tried to chalk this up to his being fourteen. But four, fourteen, or one-hundred-forty, we're all infected with the same virus. Temptation blinds us to consequences. A forty-year-old man has an affair and fails to think, "I could lose my marriage, my good relationship with my children, a lot of money" All he sees is the temptation. A fourteen-year-old boy wants the thrill of running across eight lanes of freeway and doesn't even see the grave risk that he will never again reach home. Grown people tank up on booze and get behind the wheel and it somehow never occurs to them that they just might kill somebody tonight. It's the same disease; the forty-year-old just doesn't have the energy to run across concrete for no reason at all. We struggle to understand, especially because he was a good boy and a smart boy. We're so puzzled to sort it all out because we're looking for some error that he made in his thinking. It wasn't his brain; it was his will.

As they call us in C. S. Lewis's fictional land of Narnia, we are truly sons of Adam. So, why did Nick Scroggs do what he did? Well, why do you do what you do? Why do I do what I do? Because we're broken. We will to do what even we know to be unwise, to be hurtful, to be wrong. We do it because we wanted to do it, and that's all the reason that we need.

And then the terrible consequences. They sneak up on you. You may not ever see them coming. And they don't just affect you. They put in danger the people you love, the folks traveling around you. Folks you don't even know, they hurt because of what you do. The victimless crime: I think it belongs with Sasquatch and the Abominable Snowman.

Finally, there's the loving person trying to encourage a friend to choose life. Nick had a good friend (I think he's remained unnamed in the media, and I'm not going to out him) who was walking with him that day. He refused to cross the Interstate with Nick. He tried to convince Nick to go down to the underpass with him and to join him in the journey safely home. He tried. But Nick's friend couldn't choose for Nick; Nick made his own decision.

Nick's friend and I, we've got to be feeling a lot of the same things right now. Nick's friend tried to persuade him to go another way. I tried to miss Nick, and almost succeeded. If that concrete barrier had been just two feet further to the left, I think that I could have gotten past him safely.

So often I'm on a cell phone or placating an unhappy child while driving. But I was 100% and entirely undistracted at that moment. What are the odds? If I'd been chatting away on a call or turned to pick up a thrown sippy-cup or driving along at some frantic and excessive speed, then I'd be second-guessing and feeling a lot of guilt right now. And thank God that I'm a teetotaling abstentionist—if I had had "just one beer" or "just one glass of wine" over lunch, I would carry with me to the grave the question of whether my so very slight impairment might have made the difference between life and death. As it was, by the grace of God, it was a moment when I was doing everything right.

If Nick's friend hadn't tried to talk him out of it—God forbid, if he'd been egging Nick on and daring him—then he would carry that burden all of his life. But he did try to talk him out of it and refused to go with him. And so, by the grace of God, we're surrounded by people saying over and over again, "You know that this wasn't your fault. There wasn't anything you could do about it." And we know that they're right.

But somehow, as I sat on the concrete of Interstate 30 and held Nick's lifeless hand, and as Nick's friend fell on the concrete and begged Nick to wake up, it not being our fault wasn't worth a bucket of spit. It wasn't about assigning blame; it was about tragedy and loss. Thank God, I know for certain from having witnessed it all that Nick never suffered. He was running, and then he was gone. I saw both. And all that was left was other people sitting around bewildered, trying to figure out why.

There you go. That's the way I see it. God's masterpieces tempted to do very dangerous and foolhardy things and meeting up with terrible consequences that too often destroy them and hurt everyone at ground zero. This is the story even of good people.

Are we doomed just to suffer with this condition? Knowing the Lord, I recognize the gospel in there. This story is exactly what the Bible says about us. It further says that God did an intervention. Jesus took the worst of our consequences upon Himself. He saves us and then sends us out to warn people away from the danger while we're walking with them. When they don't listen, even when we've done everything that we can, it hurts something awful. I don't even want to imagine what it feels like when we didn't do anything to stop it.

Not everyone involved in this story will be a Christian. Mine is just a little personal blog, but there might even be someone reading this who is not a Christian. Perhaps you see it differently. Please understand, I'm not trying to manipulate Nick's story and use him for anything at all. Far from it. But I just can't put it out of my mind. Sleep eludes me and solace cannot be found. Tracy has to grab me and snap me back into this reality pretty often, because I'm just insentient and lost back in the reliving of those terrible seconds, oblivious to whatever is going on around me right now. I'm thinking it through and writing about it because something's got to help, and maybe this is it.

And when I try to make sense of it all, I see the gospel there. Because I think that the Bible describes us pretty doggone well. God's got our number. And maybe, if we can all come to grips with that, we'll let Him help us.

I'm not feeling very eloquent tonight, and I need to try to sleep. And I'm scared to death to write about this because it would be so easy to hurt people when probing around in a wound looking for something. Please forgive me.

Better Get a Refund on that Crystal Ball

My father was livid; my sister wept distraught tears.

The preschool teacher at PALS, the little preschool operated by a Church of Christ church on the east side of Jonesboro, Arkansas, felt the need to inform Traci that her only son—my father's only grandchild—was "slow." I'm sure that the preschool teacher was trying to break the news to Traci gently, to prepare her for a couple of decades of struggling with a child who would never perform well in school, never be able to pursue a distinguished career, never know the satisfaction of achievement.

Dad, as I recall, threatened to take down that preschool with his own hands, brick-by-Campbellite-brick.

As Paul Harvey would say, here's the rest of the story.

Tomorrow morning, my nephew Alex Bryant Smith will graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, NY. From there he'll be heading to Fort Sill in Lawton, OK, for orientation in Field Artillery. Then he'll be posted in Germany, although he'll spend most of his time either in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Alex went to West Point after September 11—after we went to war. He knew what he was doing. He's had acquaintances who died and one good friend who lost a leg in Iraq. But he believes in our country and in our mission. He's determined to serve. I'm just as proud of him as I can be.

In other family news, today is my sixteenth wedding anniversary. Man, did I marry above myself! This morning in my prayer time I just thanked God that He sent Tracy my way and that He has prevented me from messing it up for sixteen whole years. What a blessing Tracy is! So, I'm out-of-town with her today and won't be responding to comments. May God bless you all with an enduring love like this!

The Calculus of Worthiness

Mike Cave
(December 29, 1947 – January 13, 2008)

"If you don't understand what he's saying to you, the worst thing you can do is just say 'Yes' or 'OK.'" And with those instructions, I, the new pastor at FBC Farmersville, embarked upon my relationship with Mike Cave in 1999. Mike was born with Down Syndrome. The doctors told his father and mother that Mike wouldn't live to celebrate his tenth birthday. He outlived them both (and the doctor, to boot).

Upon my arrival in Farmersville, I found that Mike loved to come to church (although he wasn't nearly as fond of the getting-up-in-the-morning that coming to church required). He loved to sing. Mike sang with gusto. The notes weren't quite right. The words weren't quite right. Mike only knew fortissimo. But the spirit of his worship was spot on.

During the Sunday School hour, Mike stayed in the office with the pastoral staff and the Sunday School records staff. Mike loved to receive a present. It didn't have to be much, but Mike did have his favorite categories: hats, books, and wrestling. Mike couldn't read, so the book could be anything, really. I would save junk mail and catalogs throughout the week to give to Mike on Sundays. If I really scored with a particular gift, Mike would reward me with a handwritten thank you note—a Post-It adorned with lines of Arabicesque scrawl.

Mike had his own langauge—his own names for people, his own system of verbs and nouns and adjectives. By the time we encountered one another, Mike's parents were gone. He lived with his brother David ("Galla") and his sister-in-law Billie ("Burl"). Every week he would come into the office and look for the key (a key ring to open the deposit bag for the offering). As the time drew near for the second service (Mike didn't favor the first service, but Billie did, so that's when Mike attended), Mike would stroll into my office with his finger tapping his raised watch-wrist. Mike didn't want me to be late.

Even if he had his own system of gestures and syllables, Mike perfectly understood everything that I said. That's the reason for the injunction against issuing agnostic yes-es to Mike. David had been burning brush once when Mike issued some unknown utterance. David gave a simple, "Sounds good to me," and then went back to get some more brush. When he returned, he found Mike holding a burning brand by the cool end, setting a large swath of grass on fire. David had approved it, so it must have been OK!

This was our weekly routine. Mike did the same thing, whether it was just me in the office or I was hosting the Sultan of Brunei. A closed office door communicated absolutely nothing to Mike. After all, he knew how to operate a doorknob.

Mike gave big hugs and big smiles. After a recent foot surgery, I went to see Mike in the Rehab Hospital. In my hand, I carried a magazine and a big white fishing hat. The magazine didn't go over so well, but the hat was a hit. I got a vigorous, whiskery hug for that one. The next time I returned to visit him, I saw that hat tooling down the hall just above the back of a wheelchair. It was a good hat for Mike, who loved to fish anyway.

I'm glad that Mike was born in 1947, back when people like Mike still had a chance to be born. Today, Mike's chances of ever seeing the light of day would be less than one in ten (see research here and commentary on the phenomenon in general here). In 1973 we handed over the law to people who have concluded with great certitude that they have mastered the complex calculus of worthiness—that they know which lives are worth living and which are not. Lives like Mike's, it seems, just don't make the cut, and so they get the scalpel.

Last night I stood by his bedside in ICU. "Mike, God loves you, your church loves you…I love you," was about all I could choke out, and then I wept a little. Later, we had prayer. At around 7:00 last night, Mike went home. David said, "I'm surely a much better person because of him." There's a variable they don't consider when figuring out who's life is worth living.

Thursday afternoon, our sanctuary will be full for Mike's funeral—I promise you. I wonder if there is a single rationalization or slogan from the pro-death crowd that would sound anything less than obscene at that gathering. I doubt it. If the number of people touched, inspired, humanized, or befriended by Mike Cave is any good measure, then his sixty years have turned out to be quite valuable. I'm glad he lived. I'm glad I knew him. I'm glad he's home. I'll be glad to see him someday soon.

What's Important; What's Not

I sit here in the inter-service break, reflecting on the early service and planning toward the late. The early service was, by human analysis, a train wreck:

1. My immediately-past Chairman of Deacons went unexpectedly into the hospital in McKinney, so I rushed over to check on him early this morning.
2. I arrived back five minutes late for the early worship service, which was already in progress (thanks, John).
3. The guy I went to see in the hospital is one of the choir's key tenors. Unforeseen circumstances also took out at the last minute the leader of our orchestra and our key sopranos. The combined toll eliminated two choral elements from the order of service.
4. We're observing the Lord's Supper today, so the order of service matters more than it usually does—more people trying to figure out when to do what they're supposed to do. We wound up a song ahead of schedule while serving the Lord's Supper.
5. I must admit, I was distracted the whole time.

Yet, as I initiated our observance of the Supper by reading I Corinthians 15:1-8, it occurred to me that the circumstances of the Last Supper were not pristine themselves. It took place in the midst of turmoil. Jesus' experience in the Garden just afterwards revealed the anguish He was feeling. The disciples were confused, having been confronted first with Jesus' act of service in washing their feet, then all the talk of betrayal, and now a discussion of broken body and shed blood during the Supper. Their circumstances that night…perhaps not that different from ours.

But 1 Corinthians 15 does the job for us of sorting out what is "of first importance" and (by implication) what is not. Together our congregation proclaimed the good news that Jesus has died and is risen, atoning for our past and demonstrating our future.

Life is messy. People get sick and go to hospitals. Tragedy strikes. Worship is, ultimately, not about leaving the mess "outside" while we think about God; it is about proclaiming the victory of God over the mess. In the midst of it all, it was a neat experience for me to come to that point in the service where I told myself, "These earthly concerns are not important. They fall vanquished by the gospel—all of them. That's what is important."

Sam Pace Dead at 80

Time ran out on me. I had been planning to make the journey up to Antlers, OK, to meet Sam Pace—former chair of the SBC Executive Committee and stalwart participant in the Conservative Resurgence. Some of the present-day unrest, Sam Pace saw coming long ago. Even from a distance, I know that Pace was a consistent leader, a pious Christian, and a convictional Baptist. May he enjoy God's gracious reward. I'll finally meet him when time stops running out.

Agnes Velores Barber, 1920-2007

My father's mother has joined her husband, her siblings, and two of her children in the presence of Christ. Born in the Ozarks, she journeyed seasonally every year into the cotton fields of Northeast Arkansas to pick cotton. While there one year, she met my grandfather, James Clifton Barber. They lived just a few miles from one another in the hills, but had never met one another until they were away from home working. They settled down in the flat lands, raised three children, and built a better life that did not include picking cotton! Yesterday we stood in her hometown of Salado, Arkansas, and placed her body beside Grandpa's. The last of my grandparents is now gone. I wonder how things are going to change now? I shook cousins' hands, receiving and giving updates on our lives, all the while wondering in the back of my mind, "Will I ever see you again in this world?" We started Tuesday morning at 3:30 EDT just across the Grand Central Expressway from LaGuardia in Queens, NYC. We caught a 6:00 flight to Chicago Midway, followed by a 9:00 CDT flight to Houston Hobby, arriving at 11:35 am. After wolfing down lunch, we started our drive from Houston back to Jonesboro, AR. We arrived at 11:08 pm CDT. That, my friends, is a full day! I've got lots of material to post—I'm really behind. I hope to get things up and going next week.

Decoration Day

Once upon a time, people referred to Memorial Day as "Decoration Day." In the aftermath of the War Between the States, Decoration Day was a holiday set aside to honor those who had died during the "Late Unpleasantness." But somewhere along the way, at least for one family living in the rustic wilds of the Ozarks, Decoration Day developed a more general sense. It became a day when people tended to the graves and the memories of all of their family dead, military or civilian. On Decoration Day one decorated the graves of family members; on Memorial Day (to embrace the new name) one remembered them. James Clifton Barber believed in Decoration Day. He believed that the fifth commandment extended even beyond the death of mother and father—even transferred from generation to generation. Last year he ascended to his Savior, and we deposited his remains beneath the stubborn dolomite of the Ozarks near Salado (that's Sal'-ah-doh in Arkansas, not Sah-lay'-doh as in Texas). He is my paternal grandfather. My father predeceased his own father, and the family responsibility passed to my generation. Tomorrow, I go with artificial flowers in hand to tromp through cemeteries in Floral, Hutchinson, McHue, Salado, Jonesboro, and Cane Island. Some whose graves I will decorate, I do not remember personally. Others are but fleeting pixies of my early childhood recollection. And then there are three of my four grandparents (Grandma Barber is still living) and my own father, who have made hallowed ground for me of narrow plots in widely separated cemeteries. I'm taking my son Jim with me. Of course, a four-year-old needs more than cemeteries to make a trip worthwhile, so I've got something planned. I have not alerted my brother and brother-in-law that we'll be in state. We're going to the domestic headquarters of our family business with Jim's camo play tent and tunnels. We're going to enter through the Finished Goods warehouse and sneak across to the Raw Materials warehouse, where we'll quietly deploy the tent in the aisles. From there, Jim plans to stage a surprise invasion of Uncle Blake's and Uncle Ronnie's offices, swords swinging and cap-guns blazing. These are the things that captivate a preschool boy's imagination—we have sat in our headquarters and devised a plan, and now we're going to execute it. I'll drive 900 miles in two days with a four-year-old in tow to visit places where, after all, I don't really believe there is anything beyond formaldehyde and dust. Foolish, isn't it? But these are people to whom I can no longer send a card. Dad would have been sixty-seven yesterday, and I couldn't even pick up the phone and call. So many of the really good ways to show my continuing love and appreciation for these people are no longer possible, but this one remains. And along the way I'll be remembering that this is just the in-between time, waiting until we're all gathered up. So, off we go in the wee hours of tomorrow morning, streaking across Northeast Texas with Beauty and the Beast in the DVD player and a half-devoured McDonalds hash brown firmly grasped by ketchup-stained fingers in the back seat. A little boy will endure stories about a grandfather he never got to meet, and therefore the stories will not seem real to his four-year-old mind. But maybe he will grasp the reality that family is important, both to challenge to impromptu sword-fights while they are here, and to decorate and memorialize when they are gone. Now isn't that a longwinded preacher's way of saying, "I won't be blogging for a couple of days"?

How Appropriate!

Today I turn thirty-seven (a.k.a. practically forty).

I have a Page-a-Day desk calendar at work that gives me a new vocabulary word every day, complete with a definition and a little story on the back detailing either the origin of the word or some bit of related linguistic trivia.

What word did they choose for my thirty-seventh birthday?

Methuselah.

Tomorrow I think I'll go shopping for nursing homes.

A Personal Quirk about Job Titles

I don't like the title "Senior Pastor." I just refuse to be called that.

Senior

I'm the youngest member of our pastoral staff, so around here we certainly couldn't mean "older" if we included "senior" in my title. Neither do we mean "longest tenured." My youth minister has been at this church longer than I have, and my music minister has been in ministry in general longer than I have. Rather, the usage of "senior" in the phrase "senior pastor" indicates "top ranking" or "chief."

Pastor

Quite simply, "pastor" means "shepherd."

So, putting the two together, we find that "Senior Pastor" means "Top-Ranking Shepherd" or "Chief Shepherd."

Hmmm.....Chief Shepherd.....Chief Shepherd.....Where have I heard that before? Does that position really belong to me?

Just sign me...

Happy to be the junior pastor (under shepherd),
Bart

Our Meeting House Desecrated

This morning we arrived at the church to find the building chalked up with anti-Christian slogans. This wasn't gang graffiti; it was cynical, anti-church, semi-Marxist hate-speech. Gems like "Sunday is the fit conclusion to an ill-spent week" and other bitter, hateful screeds.

I told our church (among a lot of other things), "People can desecrate our meeting house, but they can never desecrate the church without our consent and cooperation."

Seven years here, and eighteen years of ministry, and I've never seen anything like this.

Ain't God Wonderful

Welcome to the wonderful world of private adoption, where you conceive, gestate, and deliver in 24 hours! That's right—as of noon yesterday, we knew absolutely nothing. By yesterday afternoon, our world was turned upside down. Last night at 9:30, Sarah Ann Barber was delivered. I am currently posting from a room in Labor & Delivery at an area hospital, where Tracy is holding our new baby girl!

Hiatus

We have a huge personal thing that has emerged today. We're on pins and needles. I don't want to say any more now. I'll elaborate in the next few days. Part 2 of my political posting will have to wait. Sorry.