natemrice.ramblings

Earlier, this morning I was awaken from a peaceful slumber by my mother who told me, "Have you heard an of the things that hey have been saying on the news?"

Groggily, I replied that I had been sleeping and I had no idea what she was talking about. She replied, "Terrorists have blown up the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon!"

Shocked and surprised I responded in complete disbelief, "Are you sure?!"

I jumped up and ran to watch the TV and listened as they described how men had hijacked four (four!) different commercial airlines and flown them to their doom. Two of them into the World Trade Center Towers, one into the Pentagon, and one into a field in Pennsylvania (that they are saying was initially aimed at the White House.) I flipped through the television stations and nearly every channel had interrupted their normal programming to air the story that is going to set the tone for the first decade of the new millennium.

After watching hours of commentary and video of the plane crashes and burning buildings and accounts of the victims describing people hurling themselves from buildings and body parts falling to the streets I could hardly come to any kind of conclusion as to what to think about what was going on. It seemed like some kind of bad story or dream that I was going to wake from at any moment. Almost too bizarre to believe.

Through out  today I thought about the events of the morning and how easy it was for the world that seemed to be set in stone to be so easily turned completely upside down. I thought about how somber the President looked and how he referenced God during his address to the people of the United States. I thought about the family's that were shattered by someone's lack of vision and selfishness. I thought about the person who had to tell the children of the people that were killed today that they were never going to see their parents again and that their lives were never going to be the same. I thought about the terror the people who were there must have felt when they felt the building heave and groan as it swallowed the plane.

I thought about how just last night I could never have imagined that such a thing was possible. Was it really possible that we would go to war in my lifetime? Was it possible that we could be attacked at any moment by another country? The whole idea would have seemed inconceivable only twenty-four hours ago.

 It helped me put into perspective the kind of problems I am having and to how they relate to my picture on the world as a whole. It really seems like my problems are really insignificant as related to the real issues affecting the world today.

I was thumbing through a copy of Yahoo! Life and I realized how shallow my life, or life in general, could be when we don't put things in their proper perspective.

I still can't shake the videos of the people leaping from the upper heights of the World Trade Center Towers and watching them plummet nearly a hundred stories and more than ten seconds to inevitable outcome.. It is a sobering thing to think about. I think I hugged my seven-year-old sister at least twenty times today.

Tomorrow, for the first time in years I am going to go to church and pray for all of the people who have been affected by this tragic event. I can only hope and pray that things get better and not worse. I am definitely scared that this isn't the end of the story. Its the beginning.

Topic: In the beginning...
So I have finally decided to update this section of my web page. I have debated on what I should put in this section but finally decided to just put what ever happened to be on my mind that particular day. I wasn't sure what to start this particular day out with except to say that there is a ton going on in my life right now. Hopefully all goes well and I get a chance to vent a little bit of what is on my mind on a semi regular basis.

Topic: My brother's birthday...
My older brother's , Ryan,  birthday is in two days and I still haven't gotten him a present. *sigh* What to do what to do. I guess I'll have to figure something out in the next two days or he may be out of luck. I guess I'll have to keep it on the schedule.

Topic: Updates
 Check back often for updates as I'll try to update this section on at least a weekly basis.