The Myth & The Majesty

A few weeks ago, I mentioned the (very early) birth of the first child of two good friends of mine. Unfortunately, little Jonah passed away last night at just under four weeks old. Please continue to pray for Andy and Kajda...

I'm in Wausau right now (for a couple more hours) and while I've had a fairly noteworthy and fun weekend ... My good buddy Andy and his wife Kajda (she's a friend, too -- I've just known Andy for a few years longer) recently moved to Seattle and shortly thereafter found out that Kajda was pregnant. (They also bought a house. It's been a big year.) Little Jonah was born this past week ... 15-1/2 weeks early. He is in the NICU in Tacoma, Washington, and if you're the praying type, it'd be great if you remember them from time to time. They could use all sorts of support.

My sister would have called Jon "stormy-cloudy." This was perhaps why we were friends so quickly -- he wasn't any more prone to covering his emotions than I was. It was easy enough to figure out what he was thinking and that made him seem much less complicated than the other people I was meeting. Jon was the first best friend I had at Tech, the first person I lured into conversation with popcorn and the first person with whom I stayed up chatting for hours. He introduced me to "Donnie Darko" and Chuck Palahniuk; I helped him with his Chem 112 homework. We played sardines at the home of people neither of us had ever met; we talked religion and learned how to play Risk. Soon we were part of a pod of second floor Connolly people that ate, played, battled, and occasionally studied together. He was the guy that carried Barb down the Harney Peak trail after she wrenched her knee, who hid out of bounds when we played games in the quad, who didn't notice ...

There are several different kinds of people that go to restaurants alone: -Those who don't much like cooking but don't want everyone in the restaurant to think that they have no friends and spend most of the meal on their phone or texting people. -Those who are there almost every night because they don't know how to cook/don't enjoy cooking and don't really care if they don't have other friends because hey, all of the members of the wait staff like them and call them by name. -People on business trips. (The suits give those ones away.) -The guy in the corner who seems to be having an animated conversation with ... someone. (First, check for a Bluetooth or similar headset; if there is one, he fits into the first or third category. If there isn't, he may actually be crazy.) -Those who just need a break every now and then and come with something to do while they eat. I tend to fit into that last category. I get tired of cooking, or I haven't been grocery sh...

(For more details, go to this site ...) A man went into the water at a mostly-frozen pond less than a mile from my house tonight. After a couple hours, the search for him was called off. They will resume tomorrow as a recovery operation. As my SoDak readers know, we've had bitterly cold weather lately and tonight was no exception; the rescue divers' equipment was freezing up too much for them to stay under. It was also estimated that they were on the scene an hour after he went under. The news has not released his name, so neither will I. (As with most small towns, that detail is already known by most of us.) Please keep his family in your prayers tonight.