Happy New Year, everyone! and a belated Greeting in the beautiful Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, too.

I’ve had the cold everyone else has been complaining of. Ever notice how we speak of having bad colds, as if there were any other kind? (Oh! I’ve been enjoying the most delightful cold this past week! – uh, no.)  Fever is down now, and so is metabolism, so my sort of crazy hyperactive buzz on 2 hours’ sleep per night has come to a crashing halt.

But it’s been an amazing week. I’ve been posting pretty frequently on the comment section at change.gov – the premature government webpage devoted to selling the President-elect and his agenda to the American people. I hope he and his staff take note of the fact that very few of the posters there are in support of FOCA (Freedom of Choice Act).

As a consequence of that involvement, a friend contacted me about collaborating on a project, and we’ve been working together for an intensive three days (today not so much so, as he is also a dad of 3 and I have sort of stared at the computer today, wondering how to spell “and.”) I’ll be posting a link here – I hope tomorrow. Still very very new and embryonic, but with potential to provide information on abortion and FOCA to people who wouldn’t be scrounging around reading things like the Senate Bill, much less Evangelium Vitae. Ya know?

I just want to share with you a couple of “God moments” I’ve had, working on this. I opened the webpage for the blog just after midnight, January 1. As I was doing the preliminary work on it, earlier in the evening, I was very, very conscious of the fact that I was working in the Vigil of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and I asked her to dedicate the project to her most dearly beloved Son.

Matt had told me to go ahead and get the site opened and ready to post in – and to do that I had to have a title. I wanted something really cool and elitist (I confess it) and super-smart-sounding, but all the elegant names I could think of were taken.

One phrase kept pushing into my conscious thoughts. I didn’t like it; it wasn’t fancy enough. The thought persisted. I thought, well, if he hates it I can pull it down and repost under another domain name. I opened the blog and threw a few teaser remarks to demonstrate what a page and a post could look like, and I threw in a few links – all this just to give him the sense of the space and the potential it holds. I planned to throw all my teaser stuff out when he sent me the first of the drafts he was working on for insertion.

He loved the title. He sent me a nice, lengthy explanation of the significance of the title as it is used as a military term. I had wanted to toss it, but the title of the blog just fits.  Was that a “coincidence?” or was “Mama Mary” giving me a special gift?

My teaser opening post, he loved. It’s been edited a bit, and made into a keeper.

The introduction to the site – he sent me notes before he actually saw the blog site. I went to delete my notes and insert his, and discovered that the two sets of text fit together as if we’d been sitting at one table working side by side to create a joint post.

Moreover, what I’m learning in this project is wonderful. I would never have dove into the actual text of the Freedom of choice act for myself, had it not been for this. I sure as heck would never have opened the agenda mess from NARAL that is now integrated as part of the Obama agenda! I needed to see this. I needed to be engaged with it. This is just getting started.

Okay – off to bed for me. Please pray for me, and for my friend, and for this project -God bless you all.