Sure, Phils fans, it might be All-Star Week, our guys on the road to do some sweepin' this weekend...

...still, even for ad intra purposes, indications yield at least a slight pause before that bell starts swinging just yet.

Doesn't mean the wires aren't burning -- yet with the chorus remaining sufficiently split, on time and name alike, no reasonably secure definitive has emerged. And given the stakes, better to get the first shot on-target than attempting 18 stabs at it.

That said, and above all, a thousand thanks to everyone who's lent a hand these last hours... especially with everything else on the plate, it's a huge help and then some in the Breathing (Much) Easier department, not to mention a shot of encouragement whilst keeping at it in the mines.

Gratefully, about one and a half of the travel bills are now safely knocked out, but still another full one and a half to go, though, on top of all the usual shop-tabs. So even as the shape of things atop the home-front might be the prime news-concern of these next days, as ever, the future of this little slice of Churchworld depends far more on its readership than any one hierarch... even as, in the end, we all mix in together.

That's how these pages can be called a work of The Church, and even for all the debates over the divisions among our own in these days, round here, the guiding (read: non-institutional) principle remains sacrosanct.

And now, back to the tracking telethon -- as it unfolds, more to come.

-30-