There's not much to say in

the column this week. The truth is, I don't have time to write this week.

As I type these words, it's 10 p.m. on Tuesday evening and my deadline

at the newspaper is tomorrow by noon. I thought about writing about video

poker, or about a wonderfully silly gaffe one of my sons committed recently,

or about how atrocious the new Georgia state flag is and how I wish they'd

left well enough alone. But I don't have time.

I have to get up at 4 a.m.

tomorrow and open up our chapel by 4:30 and be at someone's house by 4:45.

Tomorrow, I will be up an hour before the Marine Corps recruits at Parris

Island ever hear the waking call of their drill instructors. Tomorrow,

a friend and church member travels to Emory University Hospital for the

removal of a brain tumor. Tomorrow, I will travel with the family and,

along with a number of other church members, sit, and pray, and wait.

Meanwhile, people back home

will be coming into the chapel that was unlocked at 4:45 a.m. to pray

for this man, their friend and brother, prior to going to work. Some of

them will come by during the mid-morning and others will attend the noon

prayer and communion service and intercede for this family at this stressful

time.

Later in the day, I will travel

to Northside Hospital and be with a woman and her family as she endures

another difficult procedure, one in a series of long and difficult procedures.

Somewhere during this day, I have to find time to do the daily prayers

and scripture readings. Sometime during the night, I will return to Emory

Hospital and sit in the Intensive Care Unit and pray some more. I haven't

decided whether to return home late that night, get a room in North Atlanta,

or just spend all night in the waiting room like I did last week.

I really don't have time to

drive back home because I have to be at Scottish Rite Hospital the following

morning to sit with the family of a little redheaded 5-year-old who has

to have a painful operation. I'll get there early, the Lord and the traffic

willing, and pray with the parents and the little guy who is much too

young to know just what is happening. If he is like most kids, he will

be scared and, if his parents are like most parents, they will be scared,

too.

Then, I'll go