Time Experience Thoughts

Scott L. Vanatter Opening Time seemed to stand still. A woman drove her car through a red light, crashing into Becky’s side of our Volvo. We had a green light all the way. I was driving. Our car flipped over, then spun around and around crossing two lanes of opposing traffic. The sun roof popped off. Windows shattered and glass spread throughout the car, and our hair, and our clothes, and our pockets like a shower of hot water. After the car stopped spinning, it was resting upside down on its roof on the curb on the opposite side of the street, a twisted pile of metal, broken glass, and dripping engine fluids. Then, my dear sweet young unconscious wife, seven months pregnant with our second daughter, suddenly went into massive and violent seizures. Blood seemed to be coming from everywhere. After what seemed an eternity, but which probably only lasted for about a minute, her seizures violently stopped. Then it was perfect stillness and absolute silence. In that moment it appear...

Small, sweet, soft and tender. Delicate, elegant, beautiful and growing. Grand and glorious, in time and eternity. Her gentle voice sounds in our ears Drawing us back to those timeless Holier spheres. She’s right here, resting right there Next to my heart in sacred Silent prayer. Her finely-featured face, in temporal serenity, Splendidly reveals her Eternal identity. Yes, I held her in my hands, gently; And she held my full attention, Intently. Her very soul echoes through our whole being Freeing us to real Seeing. Our yearning matching hers -- with us she shares The secure promise that, together, we Shall be Heirs. ~ By Scott Vanatter, July 7, 2012 (On the birth of Emma Lenore Kearns.)

About eight years prior to the start of the Civil War (and about eight years after Joseph Smith ran for President of the United States with an anti-slavery plank included in his platform), Frederick Douglass, gave an important, prescient, insightful and – in the face of the horrors of slavery – hope-filled Fourth of July speech in Rochester, NY. Please see below excerpts from the speech having to do with the meaning of the Founders and the Fourth of July, and the fact that the principles in the Founding Documents were antithetical to slavery. Enjoy your Fourth of July celebration.  [Emphasis and subheadings added my me.] HOPE AND CONSOLATION THAT AMERICA IS YOUNG [This] is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. . . . I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young . Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. . . . According to this fact, you are, even no...

Passion (Cade’s blessing) Focus (Christmas 2010) Honor (Sean’s, Kyle’s birthday; Soldiers and Scouts) ~ T hink, T ough, T oughness (Ryan’s birthday 2011) H abits, you can do H ard Things (Ryan's baptism 2011) E xcellence (Start of school, Sept 2011) A ttitude (Kansas/Thanksgiving, Nov 2011 ) N umbers (Kansas) S kills (Kansas) W ork, W ork Hard, or Hard W ork (Christmas 2011 ) E nthusiasm (End of school year 2011-2012) R . . . I . . . S . . . L . . . O . . . V . . . E  . . . (I've got a couple hundred more...)

In Place By Scott L. Vanatter, May 21, 2012. A poem in commemoration of our youngest daughter’s birth and her current pregnancy. She is now progressed to about the same stage where Becky and Sydney survived a pretty bad car accident. (Me too. Carrie was with my Mom, as Becky and I went out to lunch.) Becky was seven months pregnant with Sydney when we were involved in an automobile accident in 1979. Our Volvo was totaled. Half the glass in our car shattered into thousands of tiny pea-sized pieces. Becky's side of the car was destroyed. The moon roof popped off. Her head must have hit the side of the car, or the pavement, or both. She was in the Intensive Care Unit for a week. She didn’t move a muscle for the first six hours. She had a massive concussion, and a 4-inch crack in her skull, but she fully recovered -- and Sydney was unharmed. NOTE: After the paramedics stabilized her head, neck and back, they drove us ever so slowly to the nearest hospital, Queen of the Valley. Lat...