With children heading back to school, I'm in flashback mode. To when it was our cherubs leaving for school each morning.

It was always exciting getting to the point where they could leave. The war cries of "Who took my socks?" and "I can't believe the dog ate my homework!" (Strange since we didn't have a dog.) Getting up a little earlier each morning, thus having to set new records for dressing your body and brushing your dragon mouth. Pity the person who happened to be standing between them and the back door at launch time.

The hurts. And the hallelujahs. That pretty much sums up two of the currents here in the first days of Warrior Leadership Summit.

Not long ago, I walked along our Identity Wall where the young people here had just posted the pictures I'd asked them to draw. What I saw broke my heart.

A few days ago, I wrote about my "everywhere God" - the God whose "omnipresence" enables Him to be everywhere all the time. Including on that day when three members of my family were in medical crisis at exactly the same hour in three different parts of the country.

Since it happened in Arkansas, it hit pretty close to home. In a campground, described by a vacationer as "one of the most beautiful places on earth," hundreds of campers were overwhelmed by a "wall of water" that came in the middle of the night. A river that's normally about knee deep rose to a depth of 23 feet during the night - eight feet in one hour! I'm looking at the 8' walls in my office and trying to imagine a wall of water almost three times higher than that.

It's been one of those weeks. Our family's been hit with one medical crisis after another. One in the Northeast, one in the Southwest, one in the Midwest. Phone calls, e-mails and texts have been flying back and forth across the country as we've tried to keep up with each others' emerging diagnoses and treatments.

It always makes me feel sad when another marriage comes apart. Some separations you can see coming. Others come as a shock...like Al and Tipper Gore.

Wednesday's USA Today had them front and center on the front page, in a passionate hug and kiss at the 2004 Democratic Convention. But the headline shouts: "Gores to split after 40 years." One pop culture professor calls it "absolutely stunning. They appeared to be a totally functional modern, working couple." That's what makes the author of "Marriage, A History" conclude that "It's impossible to tell what goes on in a marriage."

Fans of the groundbreaking TV series "Lost" have been texting and e-mailing and tweeting and Facebooking like mad the last couple of days...ever since their much-talked about show's final episode Sunday night. I only caught a few minutes here and there of the brain-teasing events on that island where a plane crash started it all. But my friends who've followed "Lost" have sure been talking about how it all ended.

I never got hooked on the TV series "Lost," but a whole lot of my friends sure did. I've often seen them the day after, shaking their heads, rolling their eyes, and tongue-tied when it came to trying to explain what happened the night before. Sunday night, their long journey ended with a 2 1/2 hour finale, creatively titled, "The End."

Somebody stole the cross. Go figure.

For sure, the news story got my attention. The missing cross is a six-foot tall metal structure that's been embedded in rock and concrete, perched high up on Sunrise Rock in the Mojave Desert. Veterans placed it there to honor those who've died fighting for their country.

It's been there for 75 years. No problem. Suddenly, it's a problem. People who don't want it there argued against it all the way to the Supreme Court. For now, the Justices said it could stay. But now, somebody just went up there and stole the cross. It's crazy.

For years, the headlines were all about Tiger Woods' triumphs. Now, it seems like they're all about Tiger's troubles. In his first tournaments since his sexual infidelities were exposed, he just wasn't the almost invincible golfer we knew before. Then last weekend he had to drop out of a tournament because of painful neck spasms. On Monday, his swing coach quit.