Here, Kitty. Here, Kitty, Kitty.

Friday my middle daughter Eve ( I have three daughters and three sons) took me out to breakfast and we talked for about six hours.

Much of our conversation centered around finalizing her wedding plans. She and Mark intend to be married by the captain on a cruise ship, hold a reception while the ship is docked here in Jacksonville, sail away into the sunset, and live happily after.

They are giddy in love.

I wish them joy.

Eve trained in London and is now head librarian at a local branch library. With her training in research techniques, she has access to computer data banks unavailable to ordinary mortals. Thus she tracked down a glob of information on the two 16^th Century Samuel Wards.

Her research uncovered two interesting bits of information:

First, she arranged interlibrary loans of some material for me to confirm or correct the research I’d already done. I’ve done as thorough a job as possible, but I did work from secondary sources; I hardly ever have original 16^th Century manuscripts laying around the house.

Second, Eve and I discovered that a lot of people in past generations have confused the two men even more than I did. There’s a lot of mixed up material out there which combines the two different Samuel Wards.

Back in 1577, why didn’t they fingerprint these guys so we can identify which is which? Or at least sew tags in their underwear so we can tell them apart?

Two phrases of Scripture come to my mind in all this mini-disaster over the Ward Diary.

When I first realized my mistake, my inclination was to shred the manuscript, scream, beat my breast, and throw fuzzy kittens against the wall. The phrase that came to mind at that moment of shock was “Be Still And Know That I Am God”.

As I pondered what to do about my mistake, in my mind the phrase arose, “Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counselors there is safety”.

Eve advises me to mark the places in the manuscript that I know are incorrect, then to shelve the thing till the Inter Library Loan materials arrive, to hold off making any decision until I see what information those sources contain.

I’ve also consulted Ginny, Helen, Barbara and I’ll be talking with Donald and Wes next week about various aspects of the project. And I also pay attention to e-mails and blog comments about my work.

I stand on the shoulders of many people in order to be “self-employed”.

The reason I’m so upset about this setback is not that I made a mistake, I’ve made plenty of those, but that I felt so confident — I really thought the Ward Diary could be finished and listed in my on-line book catalog by this weekend.

In fact, confident is not the proper word, I felt so SMUG! I even joked about the final editing in my blog last Wednesday, engaged in arrogant showing off to produce a mooooving post.

Maybe the Scripture I should meditate on more is the one that says, “Pride goeth before a fall, and a haughty spirit before destruction”.

While this setback disturbs me, I realize that it is not world-shattering. My mini-plight hardly compares with the real plight of those 22 Korean Christians being killed one by one by Moslems in Afghanistan.

But, the old adage is true: In The Whole History Of The World Nobody’s Toothache Ever Hurt Worst Than Mine!

We all feel our problems are vital, urgent, demanding immediate remedy.

In seeking God’s guidance, I wish He’d give me a Yellow Brick Road to skip along to reach the Emerald City, but that’s seldom the way He leads.

Yes there sometimes are green pastures and still waters, but that’s a respite, a goal, seldom an everyday circumstance. In fact, the words of an old hymn come to mind:

By the light of burning martyrs,
Jesus’ bleeding feet I track;
Toiling up new Calvaries ever,
With the Cross that turns not back.

So, my dilemma over what to do about the Ward Diary proves to be a minor aggravation of less than Nine-Eleven proportions. However…

What’s that Eve?

Did she just say there’s more than one Drama Queen in this family?

Maybe so, but I think I’m handling this crisis very well.

Anybody got a fuzzy kitten I can borrow?

———

Here’s a bizarre story from an Associated Press newspaper clipping for the kid in the attic:

Scuba diver dies after lightning hits his air tank off Florida coast

By The Associated Press

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. — Lightning struck a diver's air tank as he surfaced off Florida's Atlantic coast, killing him, authorities said.
The 36-year-old man was diving with three others Sunday off a boat near Deerfield Beach, about 40 miles north of Miami. He had surfaced about 30 feet from the boat when lightning struck his tank, said Deerfield Beach Fire Chief Gary Fernaays.
The other divers struggled to get the man back into the boat and radioed for help, Fernaays said. The victim, identified as Stephen Wilson, of Deerfield Beach, was rushed to the beach, where a rescue crew gave him CPR. He was pronounced dead at North Broward Medical Center.
A severe-thunderstorm warning had been in effect Sunday for Broward County.
The Broward County Medical Examiner's Office planned an autopsy to determine if Wilson drowned or was electrocuted.