"...and now they're gone"

"Planes flew into the World Trade Center and now they're gone."

These were the first words Sam said to me when I answered the phone the morning of September 11th, ten years ago. She had gotten to work early that day and quickly heard the news from the East Coast. I remember being skeptical. "What do you mean they're gone? That doesn't make sense." Through sobs, she insisted it was true. 

I ran to turn on the TV and spent the next several hours trying to comprehend what had happened (how many lives were lost? I remember calculating there were probably 10,000 dead - miraculously it was much less), what was happening (are there going to be more? how many more hijacked planes are up there?), and what would happen (this kind of thing doesn't go unanswered).

I didn't know anyone that died that day. Personally I was fairly removed from the event, though I had some connections to people that were near (a grade school friend's brother narrowly escaped from the south tower). NYC & DC, 3000 miles away, suddenly felt like they were next door.

Tonight there was a religious channel re-running the memorial service that took place three days later in the National Cathedral. I remember watching it at the time and being very emotional, the rawness of the event having hardly diminished, fighting back tears as the Battle Hymn of the Republic played on the organ to conclude the service.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free

While God is marching on

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

We are all made of stars

I'm in our regional office right now prepping for the talks I'm giving next weekend at the WSU/UI Fall Retreat. The first talk I'm giving is from John 1:1-5, with the focus on verse 5:

"The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it."

One of the illustrations I'll be using involves talking about the size of the universe. I was doing a little bit of research (finding out that scientists recently tripled the number of stars they think are in the universe) when I came upon this skin-chilling quote:

"It's fun because it gets you thinking about these large numbers," Conroy said. Conroy looked up how many cells are in the average human body – 50 trillion or so – and multiplied that by the 6 billion people on Earth. And he came up with about 300 sextillion.
So the number of stars in the universe "is equal to all the cells in the humans on Earth – a kind of funny coincidence," Conroy said.

Read the whole article here.

Home screen

This blogger app has home screen potential. In other words, it makes the top 20 apps I use. Or at least that is the aspiration.

What got the boot? iPod app. I blame stage of life.

Is there an app out there that tells you your most frequently accessed apps? Probably, but for now I'm sticking with guessing. I don't need/want to know how often Tower Defender gets opened.

Referrals

Being on staff means raising financial support. And with this comes asking for referrals.

Today I had a support appointment and got a very encouraging response to my request for referrals. Here is the email my friend sent to two of his friends after our meeting:

A and D,

You guys came to mind today when I met with Darren Holland for lunch. He serves with Campus Crusade as the Director of Operations for the Greater Northwest region. Darren served at Wazzu before moving here last year and shared stories of lives being changed while he was there. I guess that is why you came to mind. His current role allows him to touch lives of students and staff across 7 states through training opportunities and conferences.

As you know, I served with Crusade for 10 years and my parting wasn't easy. Talking with Darren off and on for the past year has been the first experience where I felt compelled to re-engage with this organization.

He will be contacting you directly to see if you would like to hear about his ministry and see if there is any connection to your heart or anyone else you may know. I hope you don't mind that I am passing your email address for him to use in contacting you. And, I hope you feel no obligation to meet with him by this introduction.

--
S

If I ever want to help others know how to write a good referral, I'll send them the outline of this email.

Phone blogging

I'm writing this from the new blogger app for iOS. Not sure if I'll be doing much serious blogging from my phone, but it's certainly nice to have the option. Or at least an easier option.