Reader,

I wasn’t going to write anything more about the election until I read Peggy Noonan’s column in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. She wrote something so encouraging and comforting that I just had to share it with you.

“A Great Democracy Faces a Bad Choice” is Ms. Noonan's commentary on the notable flaws of both major candidates in this year’s presidential race. None of it was encouraging or comforting.

But it’s what she says at the end that touched me.

This week my own October surprise. A text message, a hospital, a baby due in November decides he wants in on the action now. The family grows, a grandson comes. I hold him for the first time and I hum chords and he looks at me with huge-pupiled infant eyes and the chords come from my chest and throat. They are of a song I haven’t thought of in years, “My cup Runneth Over.”
A friend of decades calls. We started out together, were young together, and he’s just seen on his phone the picture of the baby. There are tears in his voice. “In all the chaos, all the noise, something splendid God has done.” Amen.
It’s what we all know is the real news, always: life happening.
Let’s all make it through. We’ve never given up on each other, ever, let’s not start now. Can’t let the grandkids down.

Until next time, I wish you all the joy that you can wish.*

John Certalic

*The Merchant of Venice, Act III, scene 2

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