Fall/Winter 2002





"Take five minutes and think real hard. Lives, hearts, minds and souls may depend on your very decision, for in reality, you’ve got the power to affect all of those."







































"Be it talk, greet, smile, walk, ring, wave, hug, kiss, grin, laugh, giggle or just plain give a nod of the head. Each day you have a chance to make this world a better place."

 



There is not much left to say about September 11th, 2001. In truth, all that has been expressed has been enough to cover such a horrifying event. We’ve passed that year mark, that one year line that every single terrible incident is relived again in pictures, sound and emotion. It happened with Columbine here in Littleton, when we reached that one year since we lost 13 lives in a hail of gunfire, hate and anger.

We also lost something else. I would call it our "innocence". Perhaps it was that shield that protected us from dealing with the real problems facing our world. For a brief moment, we lost those shields that had been protecting us all these years. Our guard was dropped, our beating hearts exposed to the storms of pain and destruction and for that instant, we were all vulnerable. Each one of us lost that shield that day. Some of us chose to leave the shield on the ground as it evaporated into the summer air, vanishing from our vision.

While still other clung to the dust, refusing to believe that they had lost that protecting from the real problems in the world. They stood without that shield, as all of us did and dealt with the pain from losing 13 innocent lives. And then, after a time, shields were put back up. But these were not the original shields; these were the shields of naivety, of ignorance and of close-minded thought. They were something we built to protect us from further pain, as we no longer wished to deal with anything more that would bring those feelings back into our worlds. We never wanted to face that again. Others of us gave up on the shield and looked into the world to see where we could support the structure that threatened to fall from the sky and destroy all that we knew. We wanted to solve the problem here and now, while we still had time. Sadly, there weren’t enough of us. Shooting after shooting in schools befell us, the pain from our loss coming back to light at each news report across our screens.

We were then blessed with a period of respite, of slight calm in the world. Madness still prevailed in the world around us, but for most of us, it didn’t affect us in any way that we could see, so it never really mattered much past a word or two when it came on the news or we read about it the newspaper. Life returned to normal, those shields, now artificial, back in place once more. Our eyes focused dead ahead, ignorant of the lives, the stories and the activities on our periphery.

Then it happened. Two towers destroyed by evil no man could begin to fathom. Nearly three thousand people lost their lives in a morning as four airliners exploded into fire and smoke, sending it screaming into our eyes, where the tears were born once more and we realized what we were facing in the world and what we should have been tending to.

We realized in a moment that those shields we use each day were worthless and that they protected us from nothing but our fears, which in the grand scheme of things were small and insignificant. There was a revolution around the world as people came together in a massive show of support and the rest, in words, is history.

Now, we stand a year and a few months later. Still changed, still different. Still not the same. The United States of America no longer stands alone in this world. It is every single other country on God’s green earth that matters, as much as your home and mine. There is a world outside our own. Outside our shields, outside our concerns of daily life, outside the drama that seems to occupy many of us day to day. It is in this that our Achilles Heel is found.

We need to understand what is going on outside our own world. And find a way to change this world. Have we returned to normal life again? More and more studies and reports from newspapers and television stations state we are. Have we forgotten what this year held for us? Have we forgotten what brought us to the point where we now have a color-coded system to figure the threat level to the USA and other countries abroad? We can never forget that day. We can move past the sadness and look forward to the day when things such as life are normal again. But we will have to wait. And we cannot sit still waiting for that moment. We have to get out there. Be it talk, greet, smile, walk, ring, wave, hug, kiss, grin, laugh, giggle or just plain give a nod of the head. Each day you have a chance to make this world a better place. And each day our world gets worse, from terrorist bombings in Bali to terrorist hostage crisis in Russia to the next great event to splash across our news networks.

You can make a difference.

You can reach out. Now more then ever we need good in this world. We need someone to stand up and say, "I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!" and mean it. Get out there and do something for the betterment of your world, continent, country, state, province, county, city, street, neighbor or just your house and those that live in it.

New York changed everything. It changed our daily life, our government life and out lives in our homes. The Pentagon did the same. Shanksville, Pennsylvania did the same. And whenever the next event happens, wherever it occurs, however it occurs, we need to remember one thing: our time on earth is limited by age.

Each day you wake up and go out your front door. And what do you do after that? What is your next stop? What do you do in your day? I would hope you would consider for a moment just what you do day by day. And stop for just five minutes right here and think how you can change that. How could you improve life daily for someone else? Is it talking more to the person you tend to avoid and trying to reach out to them, or maybe smiling at the random person you’ve now seen on your commute for some time? Or is it just a simple hello in the morning? What would you do to improve life around you for those around you and beyond?

Take five minutes and think real hard. Lives, hearts, minds and souls may depend on your very decision, for in reality, you’ve got the power to affect all of those. You just don’t know it yet. Change the world, drop the shields and take on life with something new in your heart, a spring in your step. This is our time. This is our chance.

See where it takes you.
















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Aaron DeLay is a 20 year old writer, student and teacher. He teaches fourth and fifth grade Sunday school classes at Colorado Community Church, where is also works nights as Facilities Support. He currently writes for LFCNews and also has his own website www.postalley.net, of which he started on his own and has since been growing it from there. He enjoys writing, both fiction and nonfiction. He has several stories in development and has hopes of publishing them someday.

Aaron also hopes to start at Colorado Christian University soon and to get a degree with intent on becoming a Children’s Pastor in the Denver Metro Area.

You can reach him at sulu@totalspeed.net or you can find him online with ICQ at 45029631, on AOL at ad5482, or yahoo at ad5482@yahoo.com.


   


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