A Matter of Life and Death

The juxtaposition of life and death has kind of haunted me the past couple of days...heavy on the death side, obviously.
I thought about writing on the VaTech subject. It scares me, frankly. My husband and I both went to very similar schools...large, state, public schools, that are easily accessible. It frightens me to think of how vulnerable I really was, how vulnerable my friends were, and still are. This could have easily happened at any major university in the country. It bothers me that, especially since the shooter killed himself, everyone is looking for someone else to blame. The boy removed himself from the aftermath, from the healing process that comes with the process of justice. It was this man's fault. The school may have not done everything they could, but remembering back to my schooldays, it would be incredibly difficult for the university to react and respond and inform students quickly to any major incident. They didn't cancel classes on 9/11 until around noon. It wasn't the gun's fault, it wasn't the school's fault, it wasn't the students' fault, it wasn't his family's fault, it was this one student and him alone.
Last night I was watching a rerun of one of my favorite shows...Scrubs. The subject of the episode was the balance of life...when someone dies, someone else has the chance to live, even if the situations are totally unrelated. The doctor lost a patient waiting for a heart transplant, but an emergency C-section saved the lives a mother and baby. The doctor was talking with the heart patient about death. I'm sure someone in her position was forced to deal with the thought a number of times. She said she imagined death to be like the finale in a Broadway show, everyone singing gloriously to the rafters on their way out to their final bow. A lot of the show takes place in the doctor's imagination and as she died, he saw her singing. Quite an uplifting view, actually. Not sad at all.
But, the idea of this balance didn't click with me until I heard the news today. Today the US Supreme Court upheld, and effectivly enacted the law that bans partial-birth abortions. It was signed into law a few years ago, but has not been really recognized since there were already 2 cases in progress in State Appeals Courts on that issue. Those are the 2 cases heard by the Supreme Court last fall, and the ones this decision goes to directly.
So, amidst the tragedy of death, we are also getting news of the promise of life for the future. Today, I heard the Lord in the voice of that heart transplant patient, singing her finale (Colin Hay's, Waiting for My Real Life to Begin)... "But don't you understand, I already have a plan?"

On the Road Again...

For those of you who've been hangin with me for a while, ya know we just moved back here to Florida in December after 8 of the looongest months in TX. Well, we're going back, baby! We're moving in less than 3 weeks. Military training is a funny thing...back and forth... When all is said and done, he will have gone from FL to TX, to FL, to TX, and back to FL. Now that's not normal. My hubby switched jobs during last time in TX within the navy, and that brought us back here. It's with this new job that we're going back. But this time, things will be different!
Last time, roadblocks kept being thrown up to keep us there. Last time, we were "hopefully moving next month" for about 5 months. Last time, we lived in a small city in south TX where they brag you can drive anywhere in 20 minutes. Last time, we spent so much time doing nothing in a teeny apartment with our guest bed standing up against the wall in the "dining room" (it was a corner of the living room with an extra light fixture.)
This time, we have a set time frame...One set by sticklers for schedules. This time, we know where and when we're going next. This time, we're living in a real city, close to 2 other real cities. We'll have lots of time to do. This time I'll be in school, and hopefully someone will finally hire me! This time, we can afford a nice, roomy apartment. This time, also, we're counting on some family visitors. My hubby will have his big training graduation out there, so we'll have a real excuse for them to all come! We're actually getting excited about it.
So, now, I'm working on finding us a place to live. We got some 'house-hunting' leave. We're planning to get up to see my parents for a couple of days before we go and planning to go house-hunting. It'll be lots of travelling in the next few week...many hours in the car...lots and lots to do in the next few weeks!

Anniversary Trip

As I'm sure you can gather by the previous post, we had a great trip for our anniversary. It's the first time we've been able to just go where we wanted for the fun of it since we got married. Every other time we've left town it was to visit family for the holidays or go to a wedding or move. It was nice to make our own plan and just go. The timing worked out great, the weather was beautiful when it needed to be, and the money made it!

We left Thursday (later than we planned, but that's nothing new!) We stopped in my hubby's old college town for dinner with a couple of friends. He went to UF and as you may know they won yet another championship last week. It always fun to drive through a college town, but right after a championship...the whole town just has an extra buzz. After dinner, we continued down to Orlando.
Friday we went to Disney's Animal Kingdom. Neither of us had been to that park before. It was really neat. If you like the zoo and theme parks, you will LOVE it. That's us, in the pic, in front of a waterfall. We spent so much time just walking around, enjoying the animals and the sun and all the greenery. My favorite part was probably the safari. They have a "ride" that loads you up on an open bus--it's not on a track or anything--and drives you through a preserve of African animals. The weather was perfect and all the animals were out enjoying it. We had to stop at one point to let what looked like a bull cross the road we were on! And it wasn't like the zoo where there's only a couple of animals per exhibit. Oh no...there were LOTs of most of them, and up close. And many of them were hanging out together. There are so many pictures I want to post! I can only get a few. But you can see how close everything was!

Can you see the rhinos(UL), giraffes(UR), and monkeys(L)? The monkeys weren't on the safari. They were just off the pathway in the middle of the park. No ride, no line, just here, hangin out. How cool is that?!

Anyhoo...after the day at the park, we met up with my brother and his girlfriend for dinner. He just moved to Orlando a week before we got there. We had a great visit, as usual. I don't get to see him all that often, so it's always nice to spend time with family.

Saturday, we headed up to Jacksonville to see the Lion King. I talked about that last time, though. It's awesome and beautiful and inspiring. If you ever have the chance, really to see anything Broadway, GO! I've been about a dozen times to Broadway shows, either in New York or on tour, and it never fails to impress. Every show I've seen has something memorable and impressive about it.

We came home to our lonely kitty who missed us dearly. We watched our favorite TV show, 24, and busted out our wedding cake. I got out our unity candle, our cake topper, and my veil. We ate our cake and looked through our album. We had a great wedding. It was so fun. It was really fun to reminisce.

Happy Resurrection

We had a wonderful weekend, celebrating our anniversary. But, before I delve into that, complete with some fun pictures, I wanted to acknowledge the event that drew celebration from the collective Christian community this past weekend. I know, it can't always be all about us, right ;) of course. It's great how even when you aren't paying attention, He finds ways to remind you of Him. Of course we saw many of God's great creatures and had a glorious day at the Animal Kingdom of Friday, but what really stuck out at me was from the theatre.

We went to see Broadway's Tour of the Lion King on Saturday night. The Lion King is a special show for me. It was the first show I ever saw. It was 9 years ago in New York City. And now, it's the first show my husband has seen. It's unique and amazing. One of the most fun parts of it is that we are all so familiar with the movie and playing the "How are they going to do that" game with yourself. Translating from animated movie to live on stage is a couragous undertaking, to say the least...especially since the characters are animals! Anyhoo, they had to add some scenes and songs to stretch the time out. One of these "new" songs is the thing that really popped out at me this go-round. For those of you who read on my mom's blog, you may now have an idea on the role of music in our family. It can be very powerful. Theatre may be the most dramatic route of administration of music...for me, at least. It just comes at you. I think it's the impact on more of your senses at once.

But back to the song that reminded me to think of Him...well, for starters, it's called He Lives in You...It's hard to go wrong from there. I looked up the lyrics, along with the translations of the African lines (in brackets). I know it's only words on a page, and not being belted out by broadway singers, but hopefully, you can see something powerful in it.

Night

And the spirit of life

Calling

[Listen]

And a voice

With the fear of a child

Answers

[Listen]

[Throne of the ancestors]

[Oh, son of the nation]

Wait

There's no mountain too great

Hear the words and have faith

Have faith

[Listen]

(Chorus)

He lives in you

He lives in me

He watches over

Everything we see

Into the water

Into the truth

In your reflection

He lives in you

A Year Already!

It's been a whole year since I got married. Our first anniversary is on Sunday. We haven't had a honeymoon yet, but we were determined to do something for our anniversary. We're hitting the road tomorrow...Disney World (where we got engaged--not the same spot, but it's still a nice idea) and The Lion King on Broadway. I saw the Lion King it's first year on stage in New York. I was a bit of a theatre junky in high school and it was the first Broadway show I ever saw and it's absolutly incredible! It's still the best, some 10-12 shows later. It's gone on tour now and is going to be within driving distance, so we're there! Besides, we met doing drama together after school in high school in the city we're going to see the play, so, once again, it's appropriate. Another bonus, my hubby finished this leg of training on Monday! We won't know about the enxt part until the 13th, so it's a perfect time to take a little leave. And finally, we got our money from the military for our last move last week. The only part of our trip we're going to have on a credit card is our theatre tickets, which we bought almost 2 months ago! We're going to be staying in nice hotels for 3 nights, eating out, and going to Disney. Not too shabby, I'd say. Thanks, Lord, for letting things work out so nicely for us!
I promise to write more about my thoughts on my SUPER fun wedding, my marriage and our trip next week. I do have a bit to do still, though, to get ready to hit the road. Enjoy your weekend, but good luck enjoying it as much as I will!


PS~ On a much more somber note, my friend, Shannon's father died last week in a motorcycle accident. She's my age and I just can't imagine what it must be like to lose a parent, much less so suddenly and tragically. This is the second friend I've had lose her father to a sudden, tragic motorcycle accident. Please keep Shannon and her family in your prayers as they grieve. Thank you!