Long, Sleepless Night

Dad slept most of the night.

I slept little.

Strange gift -- this Internet. It beats watching late night reruns on the hospital television. I found myself reading blog after blog after blog. So many ultra conservative Christians keep blogs, and a few liberal Christians. Am I the last moderate left?

Whatever -- reading other blogs keep me somehow connected to the rest of the world. It's easy in this hospital room to think that reality has shrunk to these four walls and the hallway outside.

Hurricane Dennis is coming and I'm clueless what's going on back home in Miami.

I have two church members -- doctors who have gone to Haiti and they are stuck there. I urged them not to go. The Presbyterian Church, USA, ministers left weeks ago. Most missionaries have left. The Peace Corps has left. The sane have left. So they go in to continue our congregation's work there. Port au Prince is a terrible place to be right now. At least their skin is black -- it means they will be safer than I would be as a white Anglo. They are both Caribbean Blacks, so perhaps they are less likely to be kidnapped. Maybe they can "fly under the radar" while in PAP?

The Session meets this Sunday, and I'm letting Associate Pastor handle it. I hate to miss a Session meeting, but we have lots going on.

But all of that is in the "rest of the universe."

My universe is in this tiny room, focused on a father who will probably not be alive this time next week.