The Monleys are on the mountaintop! Monday morning Katie gave birth to a beautiful baby girl- Selah Margaret Monley. Margaret is Katie’s grandmother, Selah was the mountain in Israel where scholars went to meditate, the psalmist’s and prophet’s call to weigh carefully the words of the Lord.

God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
Selah

And God is within our baby girl, that is obvious to us in her shock of black hair and her dark blue eyes, we’re sitting here in Santa Barbara’s Cottage Hospital wondering at the marvelous works of the Lord.

“Imagine waking up on Everest” is what the nurse said when Selah drew her first breaths from the air. She weighed in at an impressive 8lbs 15oz with a generously endowed head, the diameter of which indicates a large brain, we hope!

Along with the musical quality of Selah, we love her name for its mystery. We saw it called the most difficult word in the Bible to translate, ranging in interpretation from a lyric pause to “forever”, “weigh” and “lift up”. Websites are written about Selah by everyone from Unitarian Universalists to Hebrew Poets to the Christafari Reggae Artist “The Lion of Zion”.

We love that diverse voices seek the meaning of Selah, and that its mystery, the truth of which is ultimately known to God, is passed to us in the songbook of scripture. We wish for our daughter a mind that ceaselessly seeks truth, both in scholarship and song, and who rests ultimately in the hope that the God of Love has called her His daughter, and has given her for awhile to us to hug and kiss, has placed us on the mountaintop with her to weigh carefully the gift He has given us in this precious, precious baby girl.

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Selah

- Psalm 46

So once again the bells are ringing down here in Santa Barbara.
The horns are sounding and the fattened calf is
glancing around nervously. We have a brand new Monley,
a brand new Summy, another branch on the woven grove
of our family trees. We thank God for Selah Margaret,
and we hope all of you get to see her soon.

With Much Love,

Nate, Katie, Finn, and Selah Monley


One last Finn squeeze before the trip to the hospital in the early morning.

One last "family of three" picture.


Things were going a little too smoothly, so the truck battery decided to die. Yes, I did have to help push...just a foot or so.


Our precious little girl arrives!!!


Daddy and daughter nap time.


Monley, table for four please! Finn had his doubts about the whole situation at first. But within an hour, he and Daddy came back from the gift shop with a helium seahorse balloon for baby Selah. A peace offering I guess. I'm confident these two kiddos will be great friends.

And look - we all fit in one bed!