Hayden, I wish I could say something to make you -- and everyone on this board -- feel better. I wanted to share something that I thought might help a little bit. I went to a church around the corner from my office yesterday during lunch, as had been requested by President Bush. I was heartened to see that the church was completely full. I don't mean full in that all the pews were filled; I mean full in that they opened up balconies for obviously the first time in awhile, put some people behind the altar, had people standing in the side aisles shoulder-to-shoulder, and even had people pouring out the doors towards G Street. The rector said something that made a lot of sense to me. He said that people wonder how God lets these things happen. <warning: Christian beliefs following> He then went on to say that God loved people enough to give them free will, and that when people have free will, that also means they can choose to turn their backs on God -- and therefore, stuff like this can result. For me, at least, thinking about it that way makes it easier to deal with this horrible situation. I know what you mean about the sleep thing too -- this week, I slept normal amounts of time, but woke up feeling like I had only slept for a couple of hours or so. I slept for twelve last night, and finally woke up fully rested. It's pretty stressful to go through the kind of week some of us had -- I particularly don't enjoy that conversations at my office now tend to revolve around how we might not be so lucky if DC is attacked again, and our contingency plans we've all developed for fleeing the area if such an attack does take place. But I'm pretty sure you've told me this more than a few times, Hayden: Just take things even a minute at a time if that's what it takes to get you through everything. And above all, keep praying and remember that we're all together as Americans in terms of going through this. Kristin Hamlin
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