An unspeakable tragedy occurred within shouting distance of my office yesterday, though I didn’t learn about it until last night. Police aren’t releasing details yet, so I won’t tell the little bit more I know than was reported by the news media this morning.

A father was supposed to take his nine-month-old baby to daycare, a task he didn’t normally do. He forgot the baby was in his vehicle, and drove to work instead. The baby died from the oppressive heat while buckled in a car seat.

It is hard to imagine a greater tragedy.

The first responder fireman is the brother-in-law of one of our friends. The baby went to daycare with the child of one of our friends. The mother works with three of our friends. The father works less than a hundred yards from our church building.

There are no words for occasions like this. Only a deep, dark silence.

In the initial weeks after Hurricane Katrina struck two years ago, people I think of as God’s Servant-Heroes descended on us from everywhere. Among those heroes of mine was a retired airline pilot from Nashville named Jim Knight.

Jim carries himself as a simple, good-hearted country boy, which immediately endeared him to Gene Logan, one of my elders (and another hero). They became instant buddies, and of all the neat people Gene fell in love with over the course of the next several months, Jim made the short list of favorites.

Somewhere in that crazy post-Katrina world someone told Jim I was a writer, which is quite a stretch. Anyway, Jim does some writing, too, so this initiated a fun conversation. I learned that Jim writes history, which is a big chunk of the way he enjoys retired life. He had a book published on a modern rendering of the story of Bonnie and Clyde, a book he sent me when he made it back home to Nashville.

Jim and I kept up by email along the way, and I was pleased when he jumped in to my ragtag group of young punk bloggers on our Desperate Houseflies blog. Jim wrote under the name Captain MidKnight, and entertained us with some of us historical writings.

After a while, we sort of lost touch, but not too long ago the good Captain reappeared and told me he had sent me a book in the mail. It was “Letters to Anna,” pictured above.

I started reading it on Monday while Hillary was in jazz dance class, and I read an entire third of the book in my first sitting. I couldn’t wait to pick up the story again on Tuesday, and I didn’t go to bed that night until I had finished the book. I enjoyed it that much!

In “Letters to Anna,” Jim tells the story of Burton and Anna Warfield, a distantly related couple who lived through the Civil War. As he tells their story, he masterfully weaves the entire history of the Civil War therein (I think I learned the Civil War better in those two days than in all my old history classes!). Burton spent two of the four war years in various Union prisons, and the correspondence between he and his wife that has miraculously survived are fascinating.

For $12.95 plus shipping, you can go to Amazon.com and get yourself a copy, but I’ve got an even better deal for you. Jim told me he sends out autographed copies himself for $15, which includes shipping.

If you are even the slightest history buff, send me a note and I’ll hook you up with Jim Knight. It will be fifteen bucks well spent.

Katrina Fatigue. That’s a term I’ve heard, and I have to admit that I don’t begrudge it. I’ve been awfully tired of Katrina, too.

Today is the second anniversary of that fateful day when she became part of our national vocabulary, and I’m afraid those who are tired of hearing about her will have to endure her name in one way or another again today. Yet with each passing year, I suspect the remembrance will slowly begin to fade until only the ones of us affected specifically will notice the date.

The rebuilding is far from over, of course, but so many of us who were involved in the day-to-day efforts of that cause are no longer in it day-to-day. I cannot say that it is time for us to move on because so many would be left behind, but there does come a time when shouting to the world is no longer option number one. And I feel that that time has come.

So I’m not going to write some grand treatise on Katrina today, trying to guilt folks into coming to help, or cranking out old stories for nostalgia sake.

Instead, I was thinking…

At some point, in the post-Katrina mess, I had somewhat of an epiphany. One day, out of nowhere, I suddenly knew exactly my goal in it all. I felt as if I had endured a potentially fatal blow in all areas of my life, and I understood that I had a singular goal that extended to three specific areas of my life. I even preached this goal my first sermon in the year 2006 as a theme for the whole year.

I wanted to be a survivor. I wanted this for my immediate family. I wanted this for my church family. I wanted this for my Habitat for Humanity affiliate family. When the worst was over, I wanted all three of these areas of my life to still be standing.

And today, looking back, they are…

By the grace of God shining through humanity from all walks of life, we have survived.

And today, August 29, 2007, I am most thankful.

So I’m watching Good Morning America yesterday and have this little epiphany…

The 12-year-old Little League World Series champs from Warner-Robins, Georgia, are on, and the entire cast of GMA is doing the interview. I think it was Elizabeth Vargas who goes all goofy and tries to ask these young boys how they celebrated the victory. In what wasn’t one of her finest interviewing moments, she asks them if they “painted the town red” (and, of course, no 12-year-old kids have ever even heard that phrase). But the deal was that she was making fun of them. She was laughing as she tried to make up for her poor choice of words, wondering how in the world 12-year-olds celebrate.

They replied that they went out to eat and just had fun. She thought this was hilarious.

Now maybe I’m reading too much into this, but it struck me as noteworthy that our collective belief is that 12-year-old kids don’t know how to celebrate. When they get older, of course, they’ll be legally able to get plastered and have all sorts of fun, but at such a young age, the ability to celebrate is beyond them.

How ree-diculous. Kids are probably the only ones who know how to celebrate.

I took my youngest and her friend, Alexis, to their jazz dance class last night. On the way home, they asked me to do something we did a couple of weeks ago in the car – roll down the windows, turn up the bass, and CRANK the music from Radio Disney.

So we did. We thumped down Highway 90 in my stylin’ Saturn Ion, bouncing to songs from High School Musical 2, and with perfect timing, a retro rendition of M.C. Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” as we pulled into our quiet subdivision. Me and two 10-year-old girls, being cool.

Kids know how to have fun. The rest of us should be learning from them.

I had to leave for our church’s evening devotional when the game went into extra innings, but I enjoyed the finals of the Little League World Series yesterday afternoon nonetheless. Later, I learned that the little fellas from Warner-Robbins, Georgia, defeated their counterparts from Tokyo, Japan, with a dramatic walk-off home run in the bottom of the eight inning. What an unbelievable memory for that young man!

My wife and youngest daughter and I watched the game together (after watching the Cardinals beat the Braves and pull within two games of first place – yippee!!!). Both of my ladies commented that it would be a cool road trip to go to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to watch the Little League World Series one year, and I completely agreed. Of course, Jody wants to go for the multicultural experience. I want to go for baseball. And Hillary requested that the trip be in two years when she’s the same age as the boys so she could check them out!

I’m sure the road to Williamsport for these young athletes isn’t so pure and innocent, but there’s still something about this singular event that carries with it some measure of purity. Little kids from all over the world playing baseball together, and the whole world watching. Something just seems right about that…

Mother Teresa has long been a life hero of mine.

You may or may not have noticed the story about her in the news this past week, but it is definitely worth noticing (I’m contemplating a thoughtful Hippo post involving it). It turns out she may have been less superhuman than the world had been able to see – maybe a bit more like the rest of us.

My initial response was that I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or glad to learn this.

But I’m leaning hard toward glad.

You can read about it HERE.

The picture is of a girl the same age as my youngest daughter. She is a Haitian “restavek,” which in Haitian Creole means “stay with,” but in reality means a child slave.

There are 300,000 restaveks in Haiti, which equals one out of every ten children.

Haiti is the poorest nation in our half of the world, and one of the poorest nations in the world. It is a short-flight from Disney World.

The restavek system has evolved from the mind-numbing poverty. There is no education, or hope, or future for children living in Haiti’s rural areas. Because of this, many families give their children to families who live in the city – to “stay with” (restavek) them. The children work as domestics for these families, and the parents of the kids simply hope that this translates into a chance for the kids to go to school.

But it mostly doesn’t. Instead, they are often abused. And for the girls, most graduate from this school of hard knocks to pursue a career in prostitution.

My wife and I have fallen for a group called Beyond Borders, and we’re planning a trip to Haiti for a week in 2008. You can read about Beyond Borders HERE if you’d like.

Because I’m on their mailing list, they sent me a link to an MSNBC article/video on the restavek system yesterday. I would really love for you to read the article and watch the video – it will do more than the few words I’ve offered. Check it out HERE.

I love my creative friend, Troy. He was the best basketball player in the history of my high school, but much better than that, I’ve found him to be a spiritual man who loves God so much that he will do ANYTHING for him. I told you a couple of weeks ago that he was launching a new teaching series at his cool church in Fort Lauderdale that he’s calling, “MyNakedPastor.com” (Watch his YouTube video above to see his intro.) Listen to some of what Troy put on his blog as a description of the series:

Why MyNakedPastor.com? To raise the Value of AUTHENTICITY! I don’t believe we can ever become who God created us to be, until first we are honest about who we are…It’s impossible to get directions to where you want to go if you don’t know where you are. We want to create environments where people can be honest about what’s going right in their life and what’s going wrong… It’s really that simple… The website is a way for us to lead out in a life of nakedness (Authenticity)…A camera following me, my family and friends around 24/7 for 5 weeks… We all have a voyeuristic interest, and we are going to leverage that reality to help people take their next step toward God. I’ve always heard it said, “Our life is the only sermon some people will ever hear.” …The website will allow more people to have access to our life sermon…The things we do right…The things we do wrong…And what we do when what we do is not what we want to do… The title will help us get the attention of a world that is flooded with noise…The GREAT COMMISSION tells us to, “Go into all the world to share the gospel”…And All the World is ONLINE, so that is where we are going… According to Dictionary.com, Naked is defined as 1. Having no covering, especially the usual one; 2. Being without addition, concealment, disguise, or embellishment; 3. Exposed to harm; vulnerable What a great definition for Authenticity…One that we can all understand… Some of the subjects we will be getting naked with during the series each weekend: Conflict…What do you do when you “have a fight” with someone; Insecurity…How do you handle the feeling of “not measuring up”; Anger…Can you control it or does it control you; Emotionally Tired & Stressed…Is there such a thing as “REST.” The Bible has some honest answers, but in order to apply them we have to get naked…Spiritually & Emotionally…

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Thank you for praying for my niece, Jessica. I would solicit your continued prayers, As expected, there will be a very serious surgery in the next couple of weeks. I will let you know more as I know more…

I have a very special prayer request today: please pray for my niece, Jessica, and my sister and brother-in-law, Sandy and Tommy. Jessica is 24 years old now, but she has faced an awful lot of health problems for a very long time. She has a special doctor’s appointment in Memphis this afternoon, and our whole family is very worried about her. For some reason, I don’t make a lot of prayer requests of people, but today is different.

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I have two specific “must-read” links for you today.

(1) The first is mainly a “must-read” for sports fans, but others would find it interesting at least. It is on ESPN’s website, sent to me by my friend, Shannon. Check it out HERE.

(2) The second is from our Hungry Hippos site (go HERE). Yes, I’ll bug you with links from here often, but I really, really think today’s post is a very important discussion waiting to happen. My friend, Msmiranda, posted it, and she links to a “letter-to-the-editor-type” question and response from a liberal magazine she reads a lot. The letter is from a Christian and regards caring for the homeless. It is really, really fascinating. And to pique your interest, the response (from a non-religious person) contains a beautiful description of Jesus that includes the f-word (and no, not football this time). I never thought I’d ever be writing those words in a sentence.

I cannot bring myself to say that Hurricane Dean turned out not to be as bad as expected, though relatively speaking that is true. I know how hateful that would sound to those whose lives have been turned upside down by Dean. My wife and I have taken a particular interest in the nation of Haiti (more about that in the future), and I noticed that four people were killed there when the hurricane passed by earlier this week. The Associated Press writer made a special point that the poorest people suffer the worst in these situations. I’m glad that was noted.

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Speaking of noticing the poor, Larry James stopped by my Hippo blog yesterday and added a nice comment. Larry is a tremendous example of love through his ministry in Dallas, Texas. If you have never visited his eye-opening blog, check it out HERE.

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Speaking of my Hippo blog, my good friend who writes under the pseudonym, Juvenal Urbino (a character in one of his favorite all-time books), posted a thought-provoking article yesterday on romantic love and the lack thereof. Drop by if you get a chance, and feel free to enter the conversation with the Hungry, Hungry Hippos HERE.

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Speaking of slow and cumbersome creatures, I changed out my wife’s car battery yesterday. You’ve no idea how proud I am of myself. No idea.

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Speaking of pride, yesterday was Hillary’s first ballet class of this particular dance season. As the daddy of a daddy’s girl, I can’t describe the feeling of watching her dance. It’s even better because she dances for our friend, Susan, a wonderful, wonderful woman who, in addition to an impressive career as a professional dancer, has a beautiful heart. It is a beautiful thing.

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Speaking of beautiful things, Albert Pujols homered for the 4th straight game yesterday! The Cardinals are sitting behind division leaders Milwaukee and Chicago at only three games out!