Thank you to Annie and Theresa for updating the blog so regularly while I was away. We discovered an internet cafe with great coffee and wireless in a very small town twenty miles from the lake where we stayed. This week-long family reunion is scheduled every other year in my husband's family. It started eighteen years ago. We stay in a cement-block lodge with rummage-sale furnishings built in the 60s. It's part of a club that was developed by a group of teetotallers around the turn of the century. There's a huge common room where people of all age can drop in and out to play games and chat almost any hour of the day. A fine way to stay connected with family and for our children to get to know their cousins.

My husband is a political consultant in school choice with many projects underway. He wouldn't ordinarily spend time on vacation away from the children and lake, but he needed to stay current on some work so we spent time together at the internet cafe. I was therefore able to occasionally drop in and read this blog and read about the Democratic convention.

I was politically active early on and continue to be fascinated with politics and policy analysis. My involvement in ministry is considerably more recent. And ministry is a calling, not an interest.

Ministry is in many ways the polar opposite of politics and my disposition toward people has undergone and continues to undergo changes as a result. Politics (as many of us practice it) is often about "we're right and you're wrong--or they're wrong--and here's why".

Ministry is mysterious but to the extent that I understand it, the point is to do what one can, with grace, to build a safe place where people are mutually present to each other and where God makes Himself manifest in ways that are always surprising. It's never predictable or routine--although it is often peaceful. It doesn't have much if anything to do with taking positions.

At any rate, I'm glad to be back and happy to see that there are a number of interesting abortion-related stories to cover.