On a recent trip to Louisville to see my mother and brother, I read a short column in a local newspaper and quickly dashed off a response to the author using my Yahoo address. What followed was a wonderful conversation with a liberal Christian brother on the war with Iraq, homosexuality, the evil of George Bush and other topics. The author of the column, Dan Trabue, is worth reading and agonizing with. I was reminded in the night of the honest, open, bitter Christian dialogue occasioned by the Civil War. Both sides read and revered the same book and followed the same Lord. Neither wanted war, but it came. Both Dan and I believe that there is REAL truth, but we are not near each other in our thinking and we know that it is quite possible that one or both of us is deluded in our current vision of what appears to be the truth. These are trying times for us all.

A street scene taken with home video this AM showed street tourists laughing gaily as they were surprised by the first wave of the Tsunami that would soon take many of their lives in Cambodia. Am I on that same street, watching portents of doom, without understanding what they may mean to our life?

At home at lunch, I find that my daughter Carrie has married the father of her seven year old son, abruptly to comply with the needs of a real estate contract they have submitted to buy a house. My now son-in-law lives with his mother, grandfather and sisters and her children in Silver Spring, Maryland. They wish him to continue to support them and stay in Maryland. I'm not celebrating. I'm hopeful and thankful, but terrified for them. The blessings of God in church was something my daughter wanted, though my wife's objections to Catholicism and his family's objections to anything else placed them in the courthouse marrying each other with their seven year old son as witness. Carrie bragged, awkwardly, that it was easier to get married in Colorado than nearly anywhere else. God help us all. I hope this precipitates a move and the formation of a family to replace the occasional visits to Colorado to reassure his son of his father's love for Chris, her, gulp, husband. I pray this is the beginning of a resolution of the trial of tears that their relationship has been for all. I hope Glenda Gay can find closure on this subject, without rancor. I hope I find it in my heart to love and support whatever God is doing through this marriage in our family.