Daniel J. Summers » Charter Member of the VRWC

“You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”  Matthew 5:43-45 HCSB (© info)

The results are below, but first, the set up…

January 5th, 2010 was the first day back to work for me after the new year. I decided to put the radio on 91.5, which is our local Family Life Radio station.  They were advertising a 30-Day Challenge – listen only to that radio station for 30 days.  At the time, I didn’t commit to it, but I thought “Eh, I’ll give it a shot.”  I only drive about 10 minutes one way to work, but driving home at lunch and back, then home for good in the afternoon, we start getting into some real time.  At these times, they are generally playing music, or the DJs are discussing the topic of the day.  A few weeks in, I befriended Dan Rosecrans, the local morning host, on Facebook.  (He just recently got a national show on Sundays, playing praise music; congratulations, Dan!)

They also have talk programs.  At work, I generally listen to podcasts or music from my computer, as I can’t just tell people “Leave me alone – I’m listening to my radio program!”  At my wife’s suggestion, I subscribed to Intentional Living.  They were doing a series of “If I Could Do It All Over Again” shows on different topic.  Those weren’t really doing much for me, and I asked my wife about her experience.  She suggested I wait it out, as it was a show that she really enjoyed.  She was right; I now wholeheartedly recommend it.  I also, through driving my oldest son to scouts, heard Focus on the Family’s daily broadcast.  I wasn’t new to FOTF at all, but I heard part of a show that interested me, and subscribed to their podcast as well.  Their feed has about 4 months of recent episodes, and they have been hitting home runs every week!  So, even when I wasn’t listening to FLR, I was listening to a few of their shows, in a way where I wouldn’t miss any of it.

The results…

The first week, it actually seemed like more things were going wrong than right.  Work was stressful, home was stressful, and I wasn’t handling it well in either place.  Over the next few weeks, though, I began to have peace.  The problems didn’t go away, but I now have peace within them.  More challenges have been thrown at me, and I’m not going to air a dirty laundry list, but in all of it, I have a peace about everything that is going on.  Of course, that doesn’t mean that I’m not trying to work through the problems and make them better; but, when I do what I believe God is telling me to do, I don’t have to stress about the results – those are His problems now.

Even now, just shortly removed from them, I can see where some of these challenges (even those in the first week) have worked together for good, to help me address struggles that I’ve had as long as I can remember.  2010 is going to be an outstanding year, and FLR is a resource I’m going to keep.

(OK – that’s counting years I missed it.  Not missing it this year…)

This year, Sanctity of Human Life Sunday has been expanded to Sanctity of Human Life Week, beginning 17 Jan 10.  The image you see to the left will be my profile picture on Facebook for the duration of this week.  These days, with medical technology being what it is, the argument against abortion is really quite simple.  Back in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, ultrasound was in its infancy (pardon the pun).  We had no clue, comparatively, to what goes on inside a womb the way we do today.  Most babies’ hearts are beating before their mothers realizes they are pregnant.  All the activity that goes on in there is amazing, and 3-D and 4-D ultrasounds have opened up this world to us.

What’s the difference if the baby is drinking through a tube or through its mouth?  We don’t euthanize preemies that have to have feeding tubes; and even after birth, the mother has the responsibility of feeding her baby.  There are periods during pregnancy now when, depending on what the mother wants, she can either have a preemie (who, though challenged, will probably make it), or an abortion.  Is that the “choice” that the pro-choice crowd is for?  Why is it that, during this most precarious time, when they need protecting the most, people feel entitled to snuff out that life?  There’s a reason that I call my abortion category “Prenatal Murder” – that’s exactly what it is.

And the numbers – these numbers are staggering!  Current Red Cross estimates put the Haiti earthquake casualty count at 45,000-50,000.  Around the world, there are 1,206,000 abortions a month; divide that by 30, you get 40,200 a day.  In the United States alone, we’re running at 1,206,200 a year, which means we take about two weeks to kill that many babies just in this country.

There’s a Haiti-a-day going on in the wombs of women around the world. These precious babies’ voices are too soft to be heard – will you speak up for them?

Time for another history lesson; nobody learned from Y2K.  Today is January 5, 2010, which is the last year of the first decade of the 21st century.  The reason, of course, is very simple – the first year of the Gregorian calendar is 1, not 0.  The first year was 1, so the first decade was from 1-10.  The tenth decade was 91-100.  The second millennium was from 1001-2000, so the “new millennium” did not begin until 2001.

This is different, of course, from birthdays.  When one is born, your age is 0; your “first birthday” comes one year after your birth (at the completion of that year).  So, when you turn 10, you’ve completed a decade.  Your cars’ odometer is the same; it starts at 0, so when it rolls 100,000, you’ve completed your first 100,000 miles.  With years starting with 1, we haven’t completed the last year of this decade.

Feel free to buy the hype if you want, but now you’ll be doing it with full knowledge of the facts; just because the tens digit changes doesn’t mean it’s a new decade.  Just think – if you get your facts straight, you can have a huge party 359 days from now to celebrate The New Decade!

This week has been the 2009 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. I’ve been “live-photo-blogging” the event when I go, and uploading the pictures to Facebook. The album is public – even if you’re not on Facebook, you can still view the album.

The final live photos will probably be Sunday morning during the farewell mass ascension, from 0700-0900 MDT. Hope you enjoy them!

Note – This tribute is part of Project 2996, a blogosphere-wide effort to ensure that none of the Americans whose lives were taken on September 11, 2001 are forgotten.  See the entire list at their site, linked in the previous sentence.

It is a crisp late summer morning.  A couple is parting ways at an airport.  While that’s not an altogether uncommon sight, for Neil and Ellen Mariani, it would be the last time they would see one another.  Neil was 59 years old; 4 of those years he had spent serving his country in the United States Air Force, and many more years working for HP Hood Dairy, from where he had retired.  An avid photographer, he was known for his ever-present Minolta camera – he even developed his own film!

His step-daughter was engaged to be married on September 15, 2001, and he had decided to go out to California to attend the wedding.  He made this decision at the last minute, so he and Ellen had different flights; Ellen had a layover in Chicago, while Neil had the cross-country UA 175 flight.  Ellen wrote a letter to her husband after the wedding, and rather than put it in my words, I’ll put in hers.

DEAR NEIL…

I, as your wife, have searched for sane answers to what happened on that beautiful, sunny, warm Tuesday, September 11, 2001. You, Neil, were so tanned and fit, happy to be leaving with me before dawn for Boston’s Logan Airport. You and I were traveling on separate planes to the California wedding of my daughter, Gina, your step-daughter. You decided to go out for the wedding at the very last minute, and to help pay for the ticket, we held garage sales together.

Neil, I will never forget when we said goodbye at Boston Airport. Neil, you as a gentleman were always carrying heavy items for me, and that morning, you carried inside the terminal two large boxes full of toys for our grand-kids that were to be there for the wedding as flower girl and ring bearer.

You kissed me at the curb and said goodbye. Then you kissed me again inside and said “See you, Ellen. I’ll arrive three minutes after your plane lands,” and walked away. But suddenly, you came back, gave me a third kiss and a big hug. It was then I noticed you seemed nervous. I thought it was because you were not used to flying. You then said goodbye for the third time, then left. I looked back to catch a last glance at you, Neil, but you were gone and out of sight.

Neil, you never made it to California for Gina’s wedding that September 15, 2001. I left two hours before you and had a scheduled layover in Chicago. It was there that I found out what had happened to you. Your plane, United Airlines Flight 175, had crashed into the second tower of the World Trade Center. You, my husband, were gone in a ball fire. The September 15th wedding of Gina’s went on in defiance of what had happened on September 11th.

Now as I stood as a new widow of four days, Gina asked me to give her away to be married. I wore two yellow roses, and made a toast in remembrance of you.

Neil, you are the perfect example of the type of American that makes this country great.  Thank you for being the man that you were – America is a poorer place without you here.

I saw this one sometime yesterday when I was out driving around town…

OBEY GRAVITY: It’s the Law