{"id":813,"date":"2007-02-21T08:21:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-21T12:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/02\/21\/uesday-night-in-the-midwest\/"},"modified":"2007-02-21T08:21:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-21T12:21:00","slug":"uesday-night-in-the-midwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/02\/21\/uesday-night-in-the-midwest\/","title":{"rendered":"uesday night . .In the midwest"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pBlogBody_232790727\" class=\"blogContent\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t    Tuesday night \u2013 somewhere over <st1:city><st1:place>Chicago<\/st1:place><\/st1:city><o:p><\/o:p> <\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">I&#8217;m writing from somewhere over the <st1:place>Midwest<\/st1:place>. I&#8217;m on a flight from <st1:city><st1:place>Chicago<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> to <st1:city><st1:place>Minneapolis<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> for a 3 day work conference. I&#8217;m not too happy about being away from home for that long. I am happy, though, that I&#8217;ll get to see my sister Mary and her family while I&#8217;m there. <o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"\">&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>It&#8217;s still hard for me to be out in the world far from my family. There is no place more alone than a busy airport or a crowded plane. I&#8217;ve had a few good conversations so far this evening with folks. I&#8217;m finding that I need to practice talking with strangers again. I have always loved talking to people when I travel. It&#8217;s such a cool way to learn new things. Now I find I need to be a little careful when talking.. Already tonight I&#8217;ve had to find the right way for answering &#8216;how many children do you have?&#8217; <span style=\"\">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>Of course, I always answer three.. then tell them about all three of my great<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>kids, including what happened to Sam. There I find that I need to introduce the topic carefully as not to make someone feel bad for having asked. I want to be honest and open.. but not shocking.. It&#8217;s an interesting balance. I almost always find that if I introduce the topic in a loving way that people respond with compassion and interest. I want to talk about Sam&#8230; and most people are eager to listen. <o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>I got an email from Diane as I was sitting in the airport waiting for this flight.. In her mail Diane told me some good stuff:<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top: 0in;\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\">Gabe      had a great drum solo at the band concert tonight ! <o:p><\/o:p><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\">Matt T      got his leg cast today (bright pink) .. It looks like he won&#8217;t need      surgery <span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span>(Gabe and I want to put      lights on it) <o:p><\/o:p><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">.. and some bad stuff. <o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<ul style=\"margin-top: 0in;\" type=\"disc\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\">A good      friend of Diane&#8217;s brother Joe was killed in the line of duty this week. He      has a wife and four kids. <o:p><\/o:p><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\">Several      of our friends have had serious health issues of their own.. or in their      families in the last week <br style=\"\" \/><o:p><\/o:p><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\">Right after reading Diane&#8217;s note, I read a great letter we got today from Patti.. A friend of a friend in <st1:city><st1:place>Austin<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> who&#8217;s son Daniel was killed in an accident in December. In the note, Patti talks about how her family is doing and what life is like for them now.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>I loved that she wrote us.. At the same time. it was hard to read the <span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span>while sitting by myself on the plane. <span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span><o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\"><span style=\"color: black;\"><span style=\"\">&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>Diane and I have talked about how we can feel other people&#8217;s sadness or pain so acutely now.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>To me it feels like there is some sort of string connecting my heart to theirs.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>It&#8217;s like we are tuned in to the &#8216;pain of the world&#8217; (in German they call it Weltschmerz).<span style=\"\">&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>When folks know our situation they always approach us like &#8216;who am I to complain?&#8217; &#8216;how can I be saing this to YOU ?!&#8221;\u2026 <span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span>but they tell us anyway.. For me, I am finding I can take it. One thing Sam has done <span style=\"\">&nbsp;<\/span>for me is to make me so much stronger.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>While I feel other people&#8217;s stories, their pain doesn&#8217;t make mine any worse.. Sometimes I even feel better for having listened if it lightens someone else&#8217;s load. <o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\"><span style=\"color: black;\"><span style=\"\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/span>OK.. We&#8217;re about to land.. So I need to wrap up.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>One quick Sam story for today: This morning Diane went to get a massage from our friend Marcia B. (we have lots of good Marcia&#8217;s in our lives !)<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>As soon as Diane walked in, the heater in Marcia&#8217;s studio went out.. though it had been working all day. Marcia brought in some nice warmed stones to keep Diane toasty during her session.<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>As soon as Diane got up and left, the heater came back on immediately. I know it was Sam&#8217;s crazy energy. !. Diane felt like Sam wanted her to have the nice warm stones anyway..<span style=\"\">&nbsp; <\/span>Sam.. keep those power surges coming..<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\"><span style=\"color: black;\">-j<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\"><span style=\"color: black;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\"><span style=\"color: black;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\"><span style=\"color: black;\">Ps. I am now at my sisters house.. I had a great talk with her AND a great cheese quesadilla. The world doesn&#8217;t need more than that. We talked for an hour when I should have been sleeping. I finally did get to bed.. here I am all cozy in their third floor apartment ready to fall asleeeeeezzzzzzzzzz\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\"><span style=\"color: black;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><a href=\"http:\/\/photobucket.com\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i147.photobucket.com\/albums\/r319\/johncohn\/feb2007006.jpg\" alt=\"Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"\"><span style=\"color: black;\"><o:p>&nbsp;<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tuesday night \u2013 somewhere over Chicago I&#8217;m writing from somewhere over the Midwest. I&#8217;m on a flight from Chicago to Minneapolis for a 3 day work conference. I&#8217;m not too happy about being away from home for that long. I am happy, though, that I&#8217;ll get to see my sister Mary and her family while &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/02\/21\/uesday-night-in-the-midwest\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">uesday night . .In the midwest<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}