One of “my kids” from this summer, the most awesome Becca, (you’ll have to fight that out with Rachel, Becca!) has a sister that went on the Sicily team last year. Today Becca left a comment with some of Tiffany’s pictures on my MySpace! I now have a small window into where I will be this summer. And I thought I’d share them with you, too!
So green! This is part of the campground in the grove of almond trees.
The view of Ispica from the campground, which sits atop a hill. Gorgeous!
The 2006 team giving a presentation in the only evangelical Christian church in Ispica. The campground is associated with this church.
I imagine we’ll eat here, too. Tables and chairs. Quite a change from last year! (I only have three tablecloths so far. I can see I need to add “buy more tablecloths” to my endless list!)
I don’t know the name of this cathedral….yet! But if my team doesn’t change, I will know it soon!
Thanks Becca! And Tiffany! Thanks for the little peak into my possible future…
Africa. Sicily. While the locations are soooo different, the spiritual need is the same. Please be praying for my team. I don’t know them yet, but a few months from now I probably won’t be able to imagine ever not knowning them! This place looks so beautiful and serene. May we remain focused on why we are there….to share Jesus Christ with people who are hurting and seeking…
Sigh. In my teens it was getting my driver’s license. In my twenties it was graduating from college and getting a real job. In my thirties it was having a career. I’m now in my forties, and I am getting vision changes. Yea. That’s me. Wearing reading glasses. Scott took this picture when we (Scott, his wife Joanne, and I) were lately snowed in in Denver and having to spend the night in a hotel. (See previous post for the whole story!)
Last month when I was reading I was finding that my vision kept blurring. I thought it was because I was tired. But that’s not all it was. I’m finding that reading glasses really help me to focus, especially when I’m tired. There’s something sooooo wrong about having to wear both retainers AND reading glasses.
It pretty much started Tuesday morning with a phone call from Joanne. Scott had his first appointment with his new oncologist in Denver and I planned on attending with them. I’d been watching a morning show and there was a news crawler at the bottom warning against severe thunderstorms in the eastern plains. “Cool”, I thought. Diane should be getting a great show out where she lives today. Joanne was calling to find out if I still wanted to go with them even though the weather was bad. I peeked out the window and it was overcast but that was about it. Thinking, “I can handle a severe thunderstorm or two” I said “sure, of COURSE I still want to go!”.
I got in my car and started to drive to Scott and Joanne’s. Not far from my house it started to graupel. About halfway there (hmmm, less than five miles from my house) the snow started to come down. It was coming down heavy as I neared their house and there was already many inches of accumulation of very soggy snow. It was wet and sticky and clung to everything – signs, poles, whatever it came up against. What a mess. But now I knew what Joanne was talking about! Less than ten miles away and they were in the middle of a very wintery storm. But this was a very important “time is of the essence” sort of appointment, and we couldn’t be deterred by a little weather, now could we?
We started the climb up I-25 into Monument Pass. It was really dumping snow by then. I feared that many of these trees would lose branches, or come down completely under the sheer weight of all this soggy snow!
At times almost zero-visibility. On the other side of the freeway traffic had stopped. Miles and miles of south-bound traffic going absolutely nowhere. Hope nobody needs a restroom.
We were able to proceed with caution. We made it through the pass, albeit slowly, speeding up when the visibility occasionally improved. Once we got through the pass, the snow abated and turned mostly into rain and sleet. And we arrived at the appointment with time to spare. Such adventure! It tends to find you when you least expect it!
The oncologist’s office shares a waiting room with the surgeon’s office. We walked in and immediately headed for the same spot we’d sat in before. Why is that? Is there some measure of comfort in having a “usual seat”? Dunno! As we sat, Joanne started the daunting process of filling out the 217 pages of required forms and releases. Way across the room one of the staff called “John….John…John…” and looked about the room. For some reason she then headed all the way across the room towards us. “I’m not John”, Scott said. And then he said his name. “Mr. Cuddles?” the staff member queried? We all laughed. While it’s similar in part to his name, and while I’m sure he IS cuddly, it just sounded so funny! Mr. Cuddles. And Mrs. Cuddles, apparently(!), filling out forms!
Rewind. In his last appointment with his surgeon Scott was given some options in regards to follow-up treatment. The option which seemed to offer Scott the best chances was also the one which is very rigorous and difficult to complete. And it was a clinical trial. A clinical trial in Houston. And it was months (6-8) long. The thought of temporarily relocating to Houston wasn’t a good one, but if that was where the best treatment was, that seemed to be the way to go. Houston.
But then the oncologist started to delinate options. The first option, do nothing, wasn’t where Scott and Joanne felt that God was leading. On to the second. As she started talking, we all started to look at each other. This option sounded EXACTLY like the Houston clinical trial! Scott pulled out the paper on the trial and showed it to the doctor to confirm that we were hearing correctly. Yes. It’s the same thing. Only it’s not a clinical trial where she practices. And not very many people are offered this option. Dr. Kane wants anyone who goes on this regimen to be young, and other than having pancreatic cancer, to be healthy! She was offering him the identical treatment that he would have gotten in Houston, only he could stay at home. What a blessing. He will be able to stay in his own house, in the middle of his support system, and near his beloved trees and front-range. “Why,” Scott wondered out loud to the oncologist “did the surgeon not know you have the same regimen available here?”. Her answer was that it was probably because she offered it to so few people.
And so, there is a plan now. Scott will hopefully start his chemo and radiation regimen in two weeks. He has to have a PET scan and have a long-term vascular access device (port) placed through which he will received his chemo, and he has to see the radiation oncologist so that she can create a treatment plan. And then he can start. Selfish note: I am glad that I will be able to be here for the first few weeks of his treatment.
Appointment completed and spirits much lifted we head out to the car. It’s raining fairly heavily so we dash into the car hoping to get back home before the I-25 is closed due to icing in the colder temperatures later in the day. Turn the key. Click click click. Yup. Dead battery. I run back into the medical center to see if there’s anyone who can jump us. As it turns out, it happens often enough that it is a service that security offers! I dash back to the car to let S&J know that security will be coming shortly and I find that Joanne has been on the phone listening to road closures. And every possible route back home is closed. Snowed in! Or I guess it would be “snowed out”!
Time to find a hotel room before every other stranded passenger snap them all up! The first hotel we stopped at was full already. The staff at that hotel graciously called three other hotels before finding an available room for us. Excellent. We at least didn’t have to sleep in the car. Time for a coffee or a latte. Barnes and Noble has Starbucks inside. Hot Chai Latte in hand, I decided to buy a book to read that night. Abner had recommended two books by the same author to me. “Velvet Elvis” and “Sex God” by Rob Bell. I picked up a copy of “Sex God”. Abner says “I don’t read Mama Lou, and I read these books almost without stopping!”. We had both greatly enjoyed “Blue Like Jazz” and Abner said if I like that, I surely like these. Rob Bell is a Christian, an author, a speaker, a film-maker, and the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan. This book is a frank look at sexuality and Christianity and how we are sexual creatures and how that sexuality plays into all aspects of our lives. I am sure I will posting on this book in the near future.
With the acquisition of comfort beverages taken care of, it was off to shop at CostCo. Do you shop at CostCo? Does it give you palpitations? It sure does give them to me. I go in there and feel a sudden need to purchase a 500 pound bag of rice and a case of 8 gallon bottles of extra virgin olive oil. And it’s sort of hard to just walk past the bag of a hundred shiny red Baby Bel cheese wheels in a net bag. Well, it is for me. Pallet of Splenda anyone???
Poor Mew Ling. I had fed her breakfast. And she wasn’t going to eat again until I got home, whenever that would be. A quick call to my sister and I find that she is in the middle of a blizzard! White out. (I didn’t even ask if going to my house to feed my precious was EVEN a possibility…I knew it was not.) She wouldn’t starve. But she would be lonely (or I would be, for her, anyway).
We slogged back to the car with our CostCo purchases. Among other items, Scott and Joanne bought a twin-pack of memory foam pillows. Scott had tried a couple of styles of the pillow while in CostCo by laying down on pallets first and then on a cushioned deck chair. He wasn’t sure if he liked them or not. Heck! We have to spend the night nearby. Why not buy them, try them at the hotel, and return them if they didn’t like them! Such a plan! So, we slogged through the increasing slushy precipitation back to the car with the pillows and our other purchases and headed off for a nice dinner.
Which we had at J. Alexanders. Yum. It continued to snow. An hour from home and we are stuck. Go figure! We checked into the hotel, got toothbrushes and toothpaste from the front desk, and fell into bed, in our clothes. Haven’t slept in my clothes since Africa! We got a free movie. “Rocky Balboa”. Sly looked weird in it, but I enjoyed all the harkenings back to the original ”Rocky”. I watched some, fell asleep, woke up, watched some, fell asleep woke up, watched some, and fell asleep. I guess I missed more than half the movie. But I don’t think I’ll rent it. I hear it ends in a tie.
When we woke up yesterday morning, the sun was shining and the roads were clear. I-25 was open. Other than some accumulated snow, it was as though yesterday never even happened! We were good to go. When I woke up Scott had already brought breakfast up from downstairs. Thanks Mr. Cuddles! So we ate. And rested some more. And then headed out. Back to CostCo! The pillows didn’t end up exciting them! So those were returned and a few more items were purchased. One more stop at Starbuck’s for comfort beverages and we were on the road. The pass was still very snowy, but the road was clear. And most of snow which had burdened the trees to what looked like their breaking point had already melted.
Almost the same trees, not quite a day later. What a difference a day makes!
There was quite a bit of snow at Scott and Joanne’s still, but as I neared my own home, it appeared that it hadn’t even snowed! So odd. So very odd. I spoke with my sister last night, and she still had 3-4 foot drifts up against her house. I talked with a neighbor today who told me “we had a few flakes of snow here, but that’s it”.
And Mew? Let’s just say she told me all about it when I got home…
All this snow on Tuesday. More maybe tomorrow. And come Sunday? It’s supposed to be in the 80′s. Weird place for weather this Colorado place. Weird weird weird. It’ll probably snow in May, too!
Doncha just love how adventure finds you when you least expect it?
There is a lesson that God has been teaching me since I was young. (Well, there’s more than ONE!) But this particular lesson is, “when my plans change it’s time to pay very close attention”. Why? Because that’s often when God’s plan differs from mine. It’s often the time when God has a special gift in his hands for me.
Since Connie died, I have been more acutely aware of this. My plan would have been to have Connie in my life, in all our lives, forever. But that clearly wasn’t God’s plan. And since she died, in some inexplicable way, I have become more alive. My life has been overflowing with gifts. My life itself is a gift. But God has seen fit to give me just about the best life ever. I don’t understand it since my life has been one that has been full of tears for many reasons since she died. Perhaps for me, at this point in my life, that’s where the being more alive lives, in all the tears.
I think that God uses this “change of plan” format in order to give us direction. It may be that we are on the correct course and it’s simply time to veer left or veer right for a moment and then return to our previous course. Or we may need to turn hard to the left or hard to the right and continue on in the new direction. Or it may be that we are in need of a radical course correction because we’ve been doing things only our way and trying to control our own life.
Connie was a hard right turn. My life’s trajectory was changed forever.
And I recently experienced a “veer right and return to my previous course” sort of event. I was in Denver earlier this week going to a doctor’s appointment with friends. The car we were in had a dead battery when we returned to it after the appointment. Click click click. As I stood under the building’s awning watching and waiting for security to come and give us a jump, a woman joined me. I won’t go into the details of what transpired between us, but I had the opportunity to do something for her that was very out of my character, and very out of my comfort zone. But I was led to be at that place at that very point in time so that I could give her something that she needed. It was a brief moment in time where, because of a dead battery, my course veered. And to do what I did for her was something that I needed, too.
When I got home, I read the days’ Oswald Chambers writing. It was a powerful and timely reminder of how we are to treat these types of moments, and of how God expects us to live our lives.
Be instant in season, out of season.” 2 Timothy 4:2
Many of us suffer from the morbid tendency to be instant “out of season.” The season does not refer to time, but to us – ‘Be instant in season, out of season,” whether we feel like it or not. If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would do nothing for ever and ever. There are unemployables in the spiritual domain, spiritually decrepit people, who refuse to do anything unless they are supernaturally inspired. The proof that we are rightly related to God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.
One of the great snares of the Christian worker is to make a fetish of his rare moments. When the Spirit of God gives you a time of inspiration and insight, you say – “Now I will always be like this for God.” No, you will not, God will take care you are not. Those times are the gift of God entirely. You cannot give them to yourself when you choose. If you say you will only be at your best, you become an intolerable drag on God; you will never do anything unless God keeps you consciously inspired. If you make a god of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life and never come back until you do the duty that lies nearest, and have learned not to make a fetish of your rare moments.
More on my adventure of the past day in my next post.
I was up in Denver yesterday and today. This curly ice and snow sculpture formed on a metal roof of CostCo. Shortly after I shot the pictures, it broke off and fell. I couldn’t decide which picture I liked best, so I’m posting both.
Here’s the “nursery” where this snowy roll was born. The above roll curled over the side. Pretty cool, huh?
This is worth the sixty or so seconds it takes to do!
1. go to Google.com
2. click on “maps”
3. click on “get directions”
4. type “New York” in the first box (the “from” box)
5. type “London” in the second box (the “to” box) (hit get directions)
6. scroll down to step # 24
Prettttty funnnnnnnyyyy!
And yes, for those of you who are thinking “couldn’t she just have given the direct link to the “get directions” page or better yet, a link to the page that shows step #24? I could have. But you have to do SOME of the work! Besides, it helps build the drama and the tension for what you’ll find at the end of your short internet journey!
Thanks to Dick from my small group at church for sending this gem to me! (I wonder how long it will be before they change it!)
Scott is looking amazingly well. I had a lovely time over at his and Joanne’s house Friday night with good conversation and laughter (and catching up on a Survivor episode we all missed this past Thursday!).
Here is the latest update on how he and Joanne are doing, in his words this time:
Dear Loving Friends,
Thankyou AGAIN for all your prayers especially as we face the question of how God would have us fight the cancer. We want to listen and hear what He is giving us next. Last Tuesday we went for our first follow up visit with our competent and caring surgeon. We are so grateful for your prayers because our Holy Father blessed us yet again with specific answers.
First, with regard to the surgery. Dr McCarter took one look and declared the initial healing complete after only three weeks– one week ahead of the usual minimum (4 to 8 weeks) ! FULL recovery from the surgery will still take around six months. He pulled the precautionary feeding tube out, told me I could remove the remaining wound tapes, said I could do anything I can stand, and released me to seek medical treatment of the cancer now! Throughout the surgery and initial recovery I have been riding on the fingertips of God’s grace and YOUR prayers. We asked you to pray against PAIN and against the high rate of COMPLICATIONS for this surgery. I EXPERIENCED ALMOST NO PAIN FROM THE SURGERY AND NO COMPLICATIONS. (I went off all pain relievers two days after coming home from the hospital.) The struggle to adjust to and retrain the digestive system has been uncomfortable but is completely normal and expected.
Second, we asked for guidance to a good oncologist as we need to explore cancer treatment options. Again, our surgeon arranged for us to see an encologist at the University of Colorado Cancer Clinic who specializes in GI cancers and has a lot of experience with pancreatic cancer. We see her Tuesday.
Third, we asked prayer for what GOd wanted in terms of cancer treatment (given the lack of successful options and the plethora of “unproven” options). The surgery removed all the cancer that could be seen with margins tested as clear. But the finding of cancer in 9 of the 20 lymph nodes removed–including 4 distal nodes–means that micrometastases (sp?) had access to the lymph node sytem/blood supply and the cancer is highly likely to return. Here’s my take so far (and I think Joanne mostly agrees.) We believe God can destroy all those micro-enemies and that is our highest request. So please continue to pray for COMPLETE HEALING CANCER AND ALL. What we don’t know yet is how God intends to do that… miraculous healing?… medical treatments?… the final resurection?… all of the above? So far we have not received a promise of miraculous healing without medical treatment, so we think it unwise to presume upon God by eliminating God’s providence in medical trials (which has the added benefit of contributing to medical knowledge even if God chooses to heal me of this only at the final resurrection).
We asked the surgeon to sincerely tell us what he would do if he were me. He said he would do the “horrendous” option. This is how we refer to the trial that throws high levels of everything at this cancer that is so resistant to treatment. This trial is NOT well tolerated. Forty percent of the participants wind up in the hospital and MOST of the rest elect leave the trial because they can’t endure the extreme sickness and side affects. HOWEVER, this is the only treatment for pancreatic cancer that shows a significant increase in survivability (up to 50 percent five-year survivability for the few who make it through). Furthermore for wimps like me, there is some lesser but still significant statistical benefit corresponding to how long one is able to last in the trial. People have not generally given us direct advice on treatment, leaving it for us to decide. Yet after we requested prayer for guidance, two doctors, a nurse, and a dear friend with medical background personally felt that I was relatively strong and healthy and should take a shot at this horrendous trial. So we are now considering if God is giving us this “opportunity’ and may continue to heal thourgh His medical providence as He has already started in the miraculous surgery. It would be another miracle either way. The horrendous trial has some very specific qualifications. I already meet the first qualification that I must have had all known pancreatic cancer surgically resected. I must then enter the trial within 12 weeks of the surgery. We are doing blood tests and a CT scan to see if I meet the other requirements. So PLEASE continue to pray.
Time recovering in the night watches afforded me the opportunity to read a small book I have had for too long called “Diary of a Country Priest.” In it Georges Bernaros says this: “A worlding can think out the pros and cons and sum up his chances. No doubt. But what are OUR chances worth…we who have admitted once and for all into each moment of our puny lives the terrifing [and wonderful?] presence of God?… WHAT IS THE USE OF WORKING OUT CHANCES? THERE ARE NO CHANCES AGAINST GOD.”
I have been encouraged in meditation on the following words from the Psalms: I WILL PRAISE THE LORD AS LONG AS I LIVE. I WILL PRAISE THE LORD WHILE I HAVE MY BEING.
For all of you who have prayed and/or cared so diligently for us,
thank you from the bottom of our hearts (see current picture attached for how happy you’ve made us),
So, now that I am going on Teen Missions again, it’s time to shop for all the stuff I need for the summer. I bought a lot of the same stuff last year, but pretty much everything that I had that had any use or life left in it I left in Africa.
Last year I had three devices that all usesd AA batteries, and I went through a TON of those. They are heavy and they are expensive. My flashlight (which was used practically constantly) chewed through batteries. Granted, in Sicily where I’ll be (unless my team gets changed – my caveat until I’m actually in Sicily!) chances are there will be electricity and lights, but you never know! Anyhow, last summer one of the kids on my team had a flashlight that you would wind to charge. Pretty cool. I decided to find myself one of those for this summer so that I could decrease the pounds of batteries I’d need to take. I found one at Wal-Mart for less than $9. The light was sort of dim, but in the darkness of the Florida swamp, even a dimmish sort of light works pretty well. Then I found ANOTHER one in the camping section. This one was WAY brighter and would stay light for twice as long as the other one. And it was only $10 more. Crank for 30 seconds and you get an hour of flashlight power. BUT WAIT! This flashlight is more than just a flashlight. You can use it full power, or 1/5th power. It also has a flashing beacon. And it has an emergency siren. And it has an emergency radio. And it has a compass. AND it has a cell phone charger! A cell phone charger! No, you aren’t allowed to have a cell phone on Teen Missions, but I will take mine so that I can use it until Boot Camp starts. Then I’ll leave it at Boot Camp and get it when I come back to Florida for debrief. After debrief I’ll have it again. I really didn’t like using calling cards and having to find a phone before and after my team last year. I’ll also ask if, as a leader, I can take mine just in case of an emergency on the field. They might let me.
Besides, how great will it be to have a way to charge my phone in case of an emergency here at home? This flashlight will be in my car at all times with the rest of my emergency stuff.
This was my plan … go on a three or four week road trip this summer with my cat, Mew Ling. I really am loathe to leave her and I wanted to see some of the sights that America has to offer (Yellowstone, Glacier Park, the Badlands) and maybe some of what Canada has to offer (Lake Louise). I still have three states on the lower 48 that I haven’t been to, and wanted to tick them off the list. They are Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota. The places I wanted to see this summer, just happen to be in those states! Imagine that! I figured Mew could just come with me. She does fine in the car. She does fine in hotels. She can be on a leash. It was going to be great! And she was VERY much looking forward to it!
But this morning my phone rang. It was Betty from Teen Missions. She was calling to ask me to lead another Teen Missions team this summer. All of the sudden my world and future again look completely different. That seems to be happening to me a lot in the past few years. And that’s fine with me. Keeps me on my toes, really.
Yeah, I’m going to go. Now all I have to do is decide where the “right” place is.
Sicily? Trinidad? Jamaica? Or back to Zambia?
She wants to know tomorrow! Yikes! If you remember, last year my team assignment was changed a number of times. I imagine that regardless of whatever team I choose, I could very well end up somewhere else again! Which would be just fine with me. Worked out great last summer!
Wow. I can’t believe I had to pull out the old “Gettin’ Ready for TMI” category! I mean, I CAN, but you know what I mean! I haven’t even finished processing and writing about all of my amazing and miraculous experiences from last summer and here I am thinking about all the things I need to do to get ready to go again!
Oh, and I asked if they had a single guy that they were putting on as the head leader with me, and Betty said “No. We don’t. Do you know anyone that would be a good leader and would want to go?”.
Maybe I can talk one of my brothers into going with me…
My Dad is out visiting my sister and me in Colorado. Well, he was. I took him to the airport this morning. He stopped here for a few days after going to Atlanta to watch Richard and the Beach Bots compete in the FIRST competition this past week. Anyhow, yesterday he decided he wanted to get a professional shave, and preferred a straight-razor shave. We Yahoo-yellow-paged to find a place and found a barber shop in very south Colorado Springs. We both assumed that since it was a barbershop they’d do the shave thing. Well, Art (at Rico’s) said, “Nope. Most barbers stopped shaving a long time ago.” “BUT,” he said, “there’s a shop not too far north and just up the street that might still do it.” He gave us directions….”just west of Nevada, before I-25, across from “The Red Top” restaurant”…he said there’s a barber who works out of his house. We headed back north, and found the restaurant, and down the street a ways I saw the sign!
Don’t have to go in to know that we’ve found exactly the place we’re looking for! And what a curious place it was. We were met at the door by a handful of small, barky, scruffy, cream and beige and tan dogs; all different breeds and mixes. The walls were covered with license plates, buttons, bottles of hot sauce, and all manner of memorabilia! What a curious and interesting place! There were only two seats inside. The barber, Paul Hansen, had just finished a haircut and he showed my dad to a wonderful old barber chair and reclined him back. There was a lady there cutting a man’s hair in the other chair. The patron, as it turns out, was getting his first short haircut in years. While there another man came who had very long hair and informed Paul that he was ready to get his hair cut short. Only not that day. He was just coming to visit for a bit! It was THAT kind of place.
You can’t see how cute my dad is in this picture, but he is…really cute!
There are hundreds and hundreds (maybe thousands?) of license plates all over the walls.
There are four states missing:
Do you have a license plate from any of these states? If you do, and you want to donate it to a very cool old barbershop, drop me a note (see the ‘contact me’ tab up at the top of my blog). I’d sure love to help him complete his collection!
Here’s Paul, the barber, standing by this great 100 year-old barber chair in which my father was reclined for his shave. Paul and his shop have been written about in the newspapers. They’re sort of local legends. Behind him you can see some of the memorabilia he’s put on display.
Of course, Paul, my dad, and I HAD to do a foot picture (okay, yes, I made them do it). This was taken on the foot support of the very cool 100 year-old barber chair.
And finally, while out driving with my pops, Pikes Peak looked amazing, so I shot a picture through my windshield while driving. Breathtaking, really.
And that was my short afternoon out with my pops! His computer has been down for some time and he hasn’t read my blog for awhile. I put in a lot of pictures in this post for him. For when he finally gets all caught up…
Thanks for visiting, Dad. Sure enjoyed having you here. Come again very soon. You’ll probably needing another really great shave soon!
There is no rule that says that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. In fact, life just isn’t “fair” when it comes to that. Well, life just isn’t fair in general.
Case in point…Virginia Tech students and teachers slaughtered in their dorms and in their classrooms. Just the latest in the ever growing list of crimes against humanity that sear our hearts and minds and leave scars on us.
There are tragedies that happen because nature and humanity collide…tsunamis, earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, volcano eruptions, etc. It is the presence of people where these events occur that make these events tragedies. No people? No tragedy. But because they affect people the events are sad, and heartbreaking. And although the scope of the tragedy in most cases is smaller, and the numbers of lives affected smaller, there is something that is even more painful in a tragedy that occurs because a person decided to make the tragedy happen, and brought that tragedy about by their own hands.
What makes a young man pick up guns and mow down dozens of people who are doing nothing but minding their own business? What makes a person take the life of so many people, only to turn the gun on themselves? It certainly must be evil. Someone who is simply a wounded person just doesn’t do that to other people. The wounded person goes straight to turning the gun on themselves. The evil person takes down as many as they can with them. It is hate and anger which makes people do these things.
Now, I know this horrific tragedy will stir all sorts of debate. How do we keep something like this from happening again? And the easy answer is, you don’t. No amount of security screening, police presence, gun control, speech control, or WHATEVER, will keep an evil person from perpetuating evil on other people. What doing all these things does do is give a momentary (and false) sense of security. For a moment we feel like we are being proactive and staving off future acts of horror. But the reality is, whatever WE do, EVIL finds a way around it.
Were there warning signs? Maybe? Our society has what detective Mark Fuhrman calls an “outpatient mentality”. You can’t institutionalize everyone who is a little bit strange, anybody who might blow one day. I’ve worked in a setting where truly sick and deranged and evil people were brought in for “evaluation”. And let me tell you, the laws favor protecting THEIR rights over protecting the safety of others. I have seen people brought in who I would have locked up and thrown the key away, and yet “the system” deems them “not holdable”, and refers them for follow up at some mental health clinic. If THOSE people can’t be locked up against their will, how do you lock up every depressed and unstable person who writes scary stories? You don’t. This guy probably should have been locked up, but for what? Being scary? You can’t predict behavior. You can’t legislate enough to protect unknown future victims agains unknown future victimizers at an unknown time in the future. This Cho killer didn’t just lose it. He’d been planning to do this. Probably for a long time. And not because he was depressed or because some rich girl ignored him, which is probably true, too. But he did it because he was angry and full of hate. He did it because of evil. He shot up one dorm. And then two hours later, guns loaded for bear, he went out to kill some more. Witnesses heard him laughing as he emptied the guns. Like he was possessed.
As the days after this shooting unfold, we will hear stories of the people who were killed. We will hear that they were all really wonderful people and that they were loved by everyone who knew them. And everything that is said about them will be true. We will hear them described as “innocents”. When these things happen, it’s never the people who “deserve” it who are in the line of fire. It’s always good people, isn’t it? Evil hates good. Evil wants to destroy good.
In the middle of this wounding we as a nation have again received, I believe we must not be distracted by our immediate desire to want to do something. When we react purely out of our emotions, we often don’t make great decisions. We invite the government further into our lives and we give up more of our liberties when we do that. We ask the government to protect us more and more and we push to legislate our own rights to protect ourselves away. This man made a decision to destroy as many people as he could. There’s nothing the government or other “powers that be” could have done to ultimately have kept him from doing so. It’s about one man’s decision to destroy. It’s about the evil that walks among us.
“Be self controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 (NIV)
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:21 (NIV)
I know of the sorrow surrounding all those who were closely touched by this horrific crime. My heart grieves for the families who have suffered losses. My heart grieves for the wounded who will forever carry physical and emotional scars. My heart grieves for the Cho family whose suffering must be unfathomable and whose sorrow I cannot imagine.
This past Sunday my cousin and I went on a very short road trip. The day was GORGEOUS, and we wanted to be in it. She had her two sons with her, so we decided to do some geocaching up in Woodland Park. Since I do this without a GPS, I am reliant on maps (street maps and satellite maps) and whatever clues I can glean from the cache information provided on geocaching.com. The satellite maps couldn’t be zoomed in and were useless for all the caches I was looking at. So I decided we’d try anyway with just a street map (there’s a teardrop pointer which puts you in the general vicinity) and the cache info. We found the first one we looked for. A micro cache which was about 1″ x 1 1/2″ by 1/4″ thick. It was very clever. But that was the only one we found. The next two were a complete bust so we decided to come back to Woodland Park when I get a GPS!
What makes up for a mostly failed afternoon of geocaching??? Ice cream, of course. So we went back down the mountain and headed for a specialty ice cream store in Colorado Springs called “Michelle’s“. We got our treats and headed across the street to a nice little park called Acacia Park. Acacia Park is the place where the mentally ill, homeless, and out of control teenage populations like to hang out. Even so, it’s still a nice little park And young families, and other people eating ice cream like to go there as well even though it’s still pretty chilly. There is a pretty little fountain made of ceramic mosaic there. It’s called the Uncle Wilbur, but I don’t know why. I decided to take some pictures. I was sitting on a low wall about 30 feet from the fountain and took these with super close up zoom.
Imbedded into the low wall which surrounded this fountain (and upon which I sat) were these gorgeous ceramic tiles. I only took close-ups. The tiles were a little less than a foot square. I think I’ll probably go back and take more pictures one of these days. I need to get a full tile shot.
While we were enjoying our ice cream, there was a young man who kept walking around the fountain. He caught my attention for a number of reasons. The most intriguing one was the presence of what appeared to be an ankle bracelet that someone under house arrest might wear. The other was the heels that had been cut out of the dress shoes he was wearing. As a deeply avocational people watcher, I know what I think his story might be, but what would YOU think if you saw this man?
And, of course, on our way back to the car, we had to take one last foot picture, one of my usual variety!
A week and a half or so ago I went to my mailbox, and pulled out an envelope that made me bust out smiling! In my hands I held a letter addressed by the very own hand of my 5-year old nephew, Mitchell! My Mom tells me that writing to me was completely his idea, and that she just sent the letter when he asked her! I guess he probably doesn’t even know that handwritten letters are just about my most favorite thing!
Inside that envelope was this letter!
Mitchell can now write his own name, from memory. He doesn’t need to copy from somewhere else! Mitchell has loved to draw and write from the time he could first manage a pencil, which was pretty darn young. I remember when he mastered five pointed stars. There were stars on EVERYTHING! So cute. Anyhow, this is Mitchell, in his baseball uniform. I talked to him Saturday (two days ago) morning. He told me he really likes baseball practice and that they are learning “crocodiles way up in the sky”. He also told me they have already learned “crocodiles down on the ground”. I figure that means they are learning to catch and then trap the ball in the mitt with the other hand! Two things that I found very interesting, and on-beyond-cute, in the letter…
1. Although he is in his baseball uniform, he is not number 18!
2. The little orange thing down by his feet is a drawing of my cat, Mew Ling!
Looks JUST like her! I just love this picture, and I just love my nephew!
I had hoped to put a YouTube video here.I videotaped some of the games using my camera and my computer.However, when I played back what I had recorded, all the footage had both auditory and visual distortion!It didn’t matter what application I played it back in, all of it sounded and looked the same.I guess maybe NASA didn’t want people taping their webcasts, huh?Ah well, here’s a still shot of the Beach Bot’s robot on the field! And it is scoring, by the way!
Welcome home Beach Bots and congratulations on being in a Final Four that I can truly appreciate!J Oh. Get this. Here it is just a few hours after the competition (I wrote this last night!) is over and I googled “Team 330″ to see what would come up. One of the top results was the Wikipedia entry for this year’s FIRST competition, “Rack ‘n’ Roll”. It listed the Division Champs already! That’s just crazy! How’d Wikipedia DO THAT?
The award that the Beach Bots won was the “General Motors Industrial Design Award”. Pretty great. Here is the FIRST official post event press release with all the results: Click HERE to read.
Team 330 is my nephew Richard’s robotics team number at the national FIRST robotic finals. I woke up bright and early this morning and downloaded a nice fresh version of Real Player so that I could watch the webcast from Atlanta today. At 11:00 Atlanta time the Beach Bot and Team 330 is announced. They play three teams against three teams (the three teams work together and are an “alliance”) and Team 330 was on the Red Alliance. I watch the whole match, and then, just as they are to announce the final score….my finger on the screen capture button and ready to capture the results so I could post a picture here…the feed freezes up! Sheesh. Am I the only one who has no end of trouble with technology? Does technology regularly fail other people like it fails me??? Any how, here it is, thirty minutes later, and the feed still doesn’t work. There are four fields that are being webcasted. My nephew’s team is scheduled in the Curie field. ALLLLLL the other fields’ webcast feeds are FINE. But the Curie field feed isn’t working! Just my luck, I’m tellinya.
BUT! The Red Alliance (along with Team 330) won their match. I just checked the standings. There are two teams which are undefeated in the Curie field, and Team 330 is one of them! They are ranked 2nd right now in their division!!!!
This is all terribly exciting…
More later today, I’m sure!
UPDATE: The winners from each division have now picked their alliances for the quarterfinals. Team 330 picked two teams that were fairly low in the rankings. That must mean that whatever they do WELL is something that the BEACH BOT maybe doesn’t do so well. There is a break in the action in Atlanta. Must be lunch time. I found a pdf file that explains all the rules of play for this year’s competition. It’s called “Rack ‘n’ Roll”. Here’s a link, just in case you are interested.
ANOTHER UPDATE: The Beach Bots and their alliance teams just won their quarterfinals and are on to the semis. In their last match they scored HUGE! They scored nearly 286 points while holding the other alliance to less than 18. I think that 286 might be close to the highest score so far in this competition. Again, this is all terribly exciting!
Ah! YET ANOTHER UPDATE!: The Beach Bots and their alliance have won the finals of the Curie division and are on to the FINAL Finals! There were awards handed out to the three teams on the winning alliance. Some of these teams have more than 50 kids on them! The Beach Bots have ten. Yup. Ten kids. Pretty cool to be on a team of ten and be winning like this.
My last, at least I THINK so, UPDATE: The Beach Bots won a design award, but sadly, were eliminated in the semi-finals of the Final Round. They were in the final four, but I don’t know what place that means they came in. I guess that means there is one more update yet to come! Besides, I need to post a video of one of their games, now don’t I?
So, I find myself putting two more cents in on this whole Don Imus thing. CBS has now fired him at what sounds like the behest of Sharpton and his crew. CBS can fire whomever “they” would like and for no reason at all as far as I’m concerned. But they should do so because “they” want to, not because Al Sharpton tells them to. Like I said before, I don’t listen to Don Imus so I won’t miss him on the airways. Don is probably a rich man and doesn’t really need the work, so he probably won’t miss working either. IMHO, Don should just aplogize to those he truly offended, the basketball players, and that should pretty much be the end of it.
But guess what? This little stunt by Sharpton et al now sets the standard for how someone who is in the public eye is to be treated for saying something that is offensive to another person. And people will be listening, Al. People will be listening, Jesse. People will be listening and you will eventually be held to the same standard. This time I think maybe the pot has been stirred a little too vigorously and I think it’ll come back to haunt!
And, nope, last weekend WAS NOT winter’s last hurrah! It has been snowing steadily since about 10:00 this morning. I really don’t know how I ever LIVED not being where it snowed. Gosh, it’s just so pretty. A storm watch is to go into effect here in about half an hour and is to last for 24 hours. We could get quite a bit of accumulation with this one. And I hear that there might be more weather again during the next week! It’s the middle of April! I could wake up to being snowed in tomorrow! I won’t complain!
AND finally, my nephew is down in Atlanta for the national robotics competition which started today. Here is a link if you are interested in watching any of the webcast. I don’t know what the schedule is, but maybe you’ll get lucky and catch my nephew, Richard, and his team, Hope Chapel Academy’s “Beach Bots”.
So, why won’t I complain if I get snowed in tomorrow? Primarily because I’m scheduled to work, and I’d like to hang out by my computer with the NASA webcast queued up!
I’ve only sort of been listening to the extensive fray in the media surrounding Don Imus’ recent comment about the Rutger’s Women’s Basketball team. I don’t listen to Imus and I don’t watch women’s basketball. I stopped taking the story seriously at all when Jesse and Al started yappin’ their jaws about it. Any time their undies get in a twist over something my eyes roll reflexively. Today in a quick troll of my AOL sign-on page, I found a link to a great commentary on the “Imus Story” by sports writer, Jason Whitlock. I have read things by this man before, and he says the things that I’d hope I’d say if I was a black man in America. And he says black, not African American, which I find refreshing. Most blacks in America are no more African than I am European, and nobody calls me a European American. But, as I often do, I digress. Back to the subject…take the time to read Jason Whitlock’s column Click HERE to go there.
And in a related and yet unrelated story, it seems that the Duke players accused of raping and kidnapping a woman more than a year ago turned out to be victims themselves; victims of a rush to justice. I think we all had the feeling that they didn’t do it, didn’t we? Anyway, it seems their nightmare is over. My heart goes out to them and their families. I hope that Jesse and Al take Don’s lead and go to HIS “house” and apologize for what has happened to these boys.
Today is Easter. It was snowing when I woke up. It’s April 8th and it’s snowing! Whassupwidat?? It took me about 10 minutes to scrape all the ice off of my car windows this morning. I was on time for church, but not on time enough to get a seat in the main sanctuary. Nor was I on time to get a seat in the overflow Stone Chapel. Dear friends, I went to church in the overflow overflow seating in the gym.
Matt’s sermon was about entering the story; stepping into life with Jesus and onto the pages and getting out of the margins. It was about how Easter is a wake-up call of sorts. A reminder of what Jesus did for us - dying so that we might truly live. A call to GET UP and join Him “on the page” in life. Shouldn’t we be living every day as if it was Easter? I don’t know about you, but I want to wake up every morning ”on the page”. And I want to live every day of my life “on the page”. I want to resist creeping back into the margins where life is narrow and lacks a story, even if it feels safer there.
I remembered my camera this morning when I left for church (but duh, I forgot my Bible!). I went picture taking afterwards. I stopped at the Post Office to buy a book of stamps and saw this pair of birds hopping around in this icy tree. As I was driving away, I saw that these two had a third with them, presumably their baby. I parked and got out of the car again, but couldn’t capture all three together.
It’s nearly 3:00. It is still snowing. I am spending Easter quietly and alone at home. I have a fire in the fireplace. It’s 28 degrees out. It’s supposed to be 60 degrees tomorrow. I’m thinking this must have been winter’s last hurrah. But a white Easter makes perfect sense to me…
Isaiah 1:18
”Come now, let us reason together,”
says the LORD.
“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
