"Are you awake... We are under attack!"

I will never forget the title of this post. These happen to be the words that woke me from sleeping in on a rainy Tuesday morning in September. This rainy morning my phone rang just before six. I reached for the phone and said hello. The voice on the other line, in an anxious tone, asked, "Are you awake?" I snapped back, "No!" Then came the statement that jolted me out of my morning haze, "We are under attack!" The tone was unmistakeably serious. I asked what he was talking about. All he said was turn on the TV.

I woke up and turned on the TV, startling Steph. There it was, like a bad movie. Smoke was pouring out of the World Trade Center. Over the next few minutes they recounted how two airliners had "apparently accelerated into the towers," the Pentagon had been attacked, and there were reports of other plane over the West Coast that had been hijacked. How can I put into words the sense of shock and fear that suddenly ripped through my mind and sent shivers down my spine. I sat there on the corner of the bed trying to figure out how we had gone from worrying about bills, TV shows, and what color we were going to paint our kitchen to now worrying about our survival as a nation. I kept wondering and worrying, were other planes going drop from the sky, would bombs start detonating, or was this the start of World War III?

Many things happened that day that are still difficult to put into words. That day, that week, even the following month will be a time that we will look back on as my parents look back on the Kennedy assassination or my grandparents look back on Pearl Harbor. It will be our day of infamy. Many horrible and shocking events transpired that day, but I will also never forget the other events that transpired after the attacks. After the attacks we as a nation pulled together, we found national pride and pride for our flag, and most importantly vowed to never forget and seek justice for those responsible.

Today I am both encouraged and saddened on this the seventh anniversary of 9/11/2001. I was saddened and frustrated, it seems as though we have largely forgotten and/or don't want to think about what happened seven years ago. I know it is difficult to think about, but it is a pain we must revisit to remind ourselves of what is at stake. While checking the news and blogs, I found more written up about the new iPod Touch than I did about 9/11. I came home and turned on the TV to find that the only network with some specials or documentaries was The History Channel. Unbelievably, we as a nation seem to be consumed with the insignificance of life, again.

Conversely, I feel that we have much to be proud of and to be thankful for since 9/11. We have decimated al-Qaeda's financial support and senior leadership. We routed the Taliban and installed a constitutional democracy that is governing it own people. Bin Laden and his inner circle now hide cowardly in the caves of Waziristan in fear of US warplanes and drones. The last few al-Qaeda propaganda tapes that have been released have been more rants against the Shiite Muslims that have aided the US in Iraq rather than threatening the US directly. While our progress in both Iraq and Afghanistan has been slow and has cost 4000 service members their lives, we have seen results.

Victor David Hanson of the National Review put it best.

"Seven years later, hundreds of billions of dollars have been expended; over 4,000 Americans have been lost in Iraq and Afghanistan; and America’s preexisting cultural wounds have had their thin scabs torn off by acrimony over warring abroad and security at home. And yet herein lies the greatest paradox of all that followed from September 11. If no one on September 12, 2001 thought it possible that the United States would not be hit again by a terrorist attack of similar magnitude, here we are still free from a major terrorist assault over 2,500 days later.

The truth is, we chased al-Qaeda from Iraq and Afghanistan and it is now in lunatic fashion chasing Danish cartoonists, European novelists, and opera producers as it cuts the fingers off smokers, tries to cover up the genitalia of animals, and looks for the mentally ill to strap on suicide belts.

Long after Jacques Chirac, Michael Moore, Gerhard Schroeder, and Cindy Sheehan have come, gone, and nearly disappeared, a General David Petraeus and thousands of American soldiers and diplomats like him remain. George W. Bush is reviled, in part because of an inability to articulate what the war against terror was, and what it was for. But Bush hatred has been reduced to a sort of politically correct trinket, worn around the neck of the clannish critics as a reminder of the President’s ineptness in expression or supposedly dangerous views — without examining what others might have done to achieve the same results of achieving freedom from further attack.

But in years to come it may well be said that the president kept us safe for years when none thought he could, and removed the two most odious regimes in the Middle East and replaced them with the two best — and confronted a confident and ascendant radical Islam and left it demoralized and discredited among its own host Arab and Muslim constituents."

In the present toxic environment, all of that is not to be spoken — but all that has nevertheless happened since September 11."

It is on this 9/11 evening that I will give thanks to God for all that I have been blessed with and I will ask that He comfort those that still mourn and hurt due to the cowardly and criminal act of 9/11/2001.

God Bless America and Godspeed to those that serve our nation and our freedom...

Where much is given much is required

Not to beat a dead horse here, but I was doing some "deep" thinking in the midst of another Hayls meltdown. I was thinking of more reasons why we have been given the awesome and often overwhelming responsibility of parenting a bi-polar child. The answers that came to me while dodging flying feet were not all that difficult to understand. The first answer is because we can! It doesn't get any simpler than that answer. God with that infinite wisdom He wields sees that Steph and I possess the skills and patience to parent this unique child. The second reason is that we care and understand. Here again God sees that we have seen the result of what can occur when a special needs child is not properly provided for in this life. I wonder how much of youth violence either by youth or adult to youth is the result of unchecked mental illness.

Here is the overwhelming part of what I learned during this thinking session, God thought our daughter was so special and important that He sent her to us for special keeping and raising. With so many special needs children being given to parents that either do not understand or care...Hayls must be pretty special indeed

God, in all His Wisdom...

This summer has been an interesting and explosive time for our family. We have recently discovered that our daughter is afflicted with Child Onset Bi-Polar disorder. We have been given a front row seat or sometimes a spot in the ring as our daughter comes completely unglued and explosively becomes like another person. Those of you reading this post that know someone who has been diagnosed with this disease knows that this does not just go away, clear up, nor can it be cured. Our daughter and our family will deal with this for the rest of our lives. I recently have thought to myself, "Why us, God?"

As I question God, I think about all the unpredictable behavior, manic episodes, and mania to come, and I start to feel a lot of anxiety and despair. It is in the midst of this developing challenge that I can already see that I have not been injured by this, but rather I have been edified and taught about my own shortcomings and talents. I have learned that I have infinite love for this daughter that often curses me in a fit of rage. I have learned that discussing our feelings calmly and quietly can do far more benefit that raising my voice or hand in anger. I have learned that i have a lot to learn and that I need to be open and receptive to that teaching. For whatever reason, God, in all His Wisdom, has decided that this struggle we now face is the best way to teach us about love, compassion, and wisdom.

I think I ought to go pray...

Going forward...

I figured with all the blogging going on in the family that I should restart this hobby. Previously this page has been strictly a political rant but I am going to open in up into a blog of all my thoughts and contemplations. Get ready!