Where I was on September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001
Age: 11
Location: Home (Tennessee)

I was sitting in my family's kitchen watching the PBS channel as an old guy with crazy white hair who reminded me of a cross between my grandfather and Albert Einstein taught me about physics. That morning, of all mornings, my mom had decided not to watch any of the morning programs—we were used to watching them all. Good Morning, America, The Today Show, and any other morning program that we could reach through our bunny ear antennae.

"When your show's over turn the TV off," my mom had told me. I was home schooled.

But my mom wasn't in the room when my "educational show" ended so I started flipping channels. I found my self staring at two smoking towers but didn't understand what was going on. There had been a lot of talk and video of nuclear plants in the news lately as government officials talked about moving nuclear waste to the Yucca mountains in Utah. I didn't get a good view of what was smoking before thinking it was the same old debate over the waste and decided to be obedient and hit the red power button on the remote.

About four hours later at 1 p.m. my dad arrived home early from work.

"Did you not hear what happened?" He asked my mom who was surprised to see him in the middle of the day.

For the rest of the afternoon and evening my parents' eyes were glued to the TV while I tried to make sense of what was happening. It was crazy. I remember planning to move to Greenland.

My whole mindset changed. As a child you trust that time will be somewhat the same from year to year. The seasons will come and go. Your birthday and Christmas will come and go; and if something is bad this year, next year you hope it will be better.

I remember thinking, I can no longer say, 'next year will be better' when things go wrong in my life . . . because there might not even be a next year. As an 11-year-old, that was a tough concept to grasp that day.

After a while I couldn't watch the images anymore and went to my parents' room, flipped on their little black and white TV to PBS and started watching the afternoon cartoons. It was too much.

Last year I started reading a book about a September 11 survivor, and couldn't finish . . . the images she wrote about made what I understood as an 11-year-old seem like something a four-year-old should be able to grasp easily. Meaning, what really took place that day cannot be measured in any way. To me, it simply appears as a dark chasm from which evil spewed with all its force, leaving whose who were alive that day suspended at various levels within the chasm, understanding varying levels of darkness. I wasn't ready, even at the age of 20, to descend to her where she was . . . I wasn't ready to understand the day the way she did.

Yet, here we are . . . ten years later. Many are still suspended. I don't think you can really pull yourself out. It's a knowledge suspension. It stays with you. Even if what you experienced was so minute in comparison to the one's who were lucky enough to make it out of the towers that day.

For me, age 21 now . . . I still don't say things will be better next year. It's such a little thing, but when I look back . . . saying 'next year everything will be OK' when things got messed up was such a comfort for me as a 10 and 11-year-old . . . before 9-11.

GroupLink

When I was in my teens I used to read a bunch of Christian books that were supposed to tell me how to have a great life . . . actually I mostly just scanned and flipped through them. Mainly because after about two chapters I would get frustrated. I was looking for something that I could do . . . to have the perfect existence . . . but they kept pointing me back to the Bible.

If I had wanted to read the Bible to figure out life . . . I would have . . . !  I thought and switched whatever book I was reading out for another one that would hopefully give me a formula that didn't include reading the Bible.

But they never did . . . I was always pointed back to the Bible . . .

It took me a while but I finally got it . . . the Bible is where we as Christians should start and finish. The Word of God. This semester I'm leading a small group on campus, and all we are going to be doing is reading the Bible, journaling our thoughts, and sharing that with the group. Pretty simple, pretty chill. Just you, your Bible, a journal, and God.

Divide: Good/Bad . . .

(Note: The "We" in this post refers to humans in general . . . not any two specific people).

We divide numbers. We divide atoms. We divide cookies with our best friend when we only have one. We divide for good reasons. And then we divide for bad reason . . . however, we might think it's for a good reason.

We divide homes because we will be better off without the other person. We divide workplaces because our idea was better. We divide countries because . . . well . . . same as the last one. We divide churches because . . . our agenda is more important than the souls we shove to the other side.

We divide.

Stop the Divide. 

Too Busy for Ice Cream

Wow! How busy can a summer get? I think that this for sure has been one of the craziest one's I've ever experienced! That's why I haven't really kept up with this blog. However, let me note a sad fact. The whole month of July went by without me making a tribute to ice cream on here. Sad, I know (note sarcasm . . . lol) July is National Ice Cream Month thanks to Ronald Reagan. What a great pres! (Note no sarcasm . . . ahahahaha). 

Enjoying me some ice cream during the month of July ; )

The other day while I was cleaning out some paper from YEARS ago . . . I found a poem I'd written about ice cream . . . it's really silly but I thought it was still cute and demonstrated my abundant love for this frozen, sweet solid. ; )

Here it is:

I love ice cream
It is my dream
To be on the team
Ice cream

So there it is . . . my blog honoring ice cream! ahahaha! ; D

Awesome T-shirt Design

 

http://www.designbyhumans.com/shop/detail/8942

This has got to be one of the coolest shirts I have ever seen!! I love it. Here is the story behind it by the artist. . .

"This idea came to me at probably one of the lowest points of my life. . . . It was then that I asked myself, “What am I really worth?” So I googled, “black market prices for body organs” and voila!, I had myself a design concept.

"The design itself was drawn by hand using a Wacom tablet and Adobe Photoshop."

You can check out the shirt for yourself at the link posted under the photo.

Just Heard Coming From Kitchen:

Dad: Is this sugar or what?

Mom: It's beef seasoning!*

*Note: That would be vegan fake beef seasoning . . . just incase anyone was wondering. haha.

Happy 29 years . . .

Yup, that's right, my folks have been married for 29 years! Amazing, I know. lol. They were also married on the Fourth of July. Seems appropriate since both sides of my family (my dad directly and my mom's mother and grandparents) immigrated to the United States making this land their new permanent home.

My mom's bouquet was red, white, and blue.

The happy couple.