Category: Blogging

American Diabetes Month

That’s right, a whole month dedicated to Diabetes Awareness. Did you know that by the end of today, 4,300 people in the United States will be diagnosed with diabetes? As I wrote about last week, the USA Today reported on 10/22/10 that the number of diabetes cases in the US will double, and perhaps triple by 2050. As many as one in three will have the disease!

On Friday, I picked up a great book at the library entitled Diabetes Rising, written by Dan Hurley. Although I’m still reading the book, so far Hurley has done a masterful job at tracing the history of this disease, once very rare, now, sadly, very common.

The first written reference of diabetes comes from an Egyptian medical text known as the Ebers Papyrus,written in the year 1536 B.C. Diabetes cases remained rare until the 1920’s, when doctors began to notice an alarming rise of this chronic illness. Without a doubt, those doctors back then could have never predicted the levels that presently exist.

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Into The Light

I hope you had the chance to follow some of the rescue efforts at San Jose Mine in Copiano, Chile that are taking place today. After 69 days underground, miner after miner was hoisted up nearly 2,000 feet of rock and into the sunlight, fresh air, and the waiting arms of loved ones and rescue workers.

These thirty-three men are being rescued from the longest underground entrapment in history. It is nothing short of a miracle. Over the weeks ahead, we’ll learn their tale of survival. What sustained them?

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A Very Good Day

Thanks for everyone who was praying for our Faith Fights Diabetes meeting this morning. To say that it was a success would be an understatement. I don’t know how many people will ultimately sign up to help with this initiative, but there is no question in my mind that our message resonated with the nearly sixty people who came.

The statistics are simply too hard to ignore. I talked about some numbers yesterday, but there was one slide that was shown today that took my breath away. According to the American Diabetes Association, one-third of all caucasian children born in the United States after the year 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime. For ethnic children, the number jumps to fifty percent. That’s either one out of three, or one out of two. Absolutely staggering.

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A Milestone

I was really busy all day yesterday, and didn’t have the chance to check my blog until I got home around 10:30 pm. Sometime during the day, making all things new had its 100,000th hit. Now, in the grand scheme of things, my little blog is a blip on the screen. But to me, this is an amazing fact, given that I really don’t know what I’m doing, and I’ve only been at it since mid March 🙂

Yesterday, I had the chance to talk with my brother Rick, and I was telling him that WordPress, the platform I use for this blog, has a great statistics page that gives me some insight (when I have time) to see how people get to my blog, and where they go when they leave. At one point over the summer, there were all these people finding their way to me through a website in Poland. Amazing.

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Perspective Makes A Difference

Post author By seedthrower1
Post date 09/29/2010
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Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on my posting Change Your Perspective I put up last week. A lot of people have said that the story about the conversation between a pastor and parishioner really resonated with them. If you missed it, just click above.

Isn’t it amazing how quickly our attitude can change from bad to good by simply seeing things in a different way? As I wrote in that posting, our circumstances may not change, but our perspective can. I was speaking to a young man tonight who really liked this message. He talked about his own circumstances, which can sometimes be overwhelming.

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Setting Goals

The other day, someone sent me an email asking how I get so much accomplished. If they could only see my office 🙂

Well, that question got me thinking. Now that summer is over, my busy time is set to begin. And this year, in addition to my usual responsibilities, I’ve added a bunch more, including this blog.

I had no idea there would be as many people as there are reading my postings each day. Thanks to everyone for all the encouragement. Of course, this just makes me want to get better and better with it, and this will take a lot of time and effort.

Then I have the Faith Fighting Diabetes initiative that will be starting next month. I know there will be a lot of good that will come from this, and it’s only just beginning. I’m very excited about the wonderful encouragement I’ve received from many people who want to team up with me and bring this to my community. Please say some prayer for it’s success!

My list could go on and on, just as I’m sure yours could as well. So, all this got me thinking. How can I be more effective, more efficient, and more energized? Today, I think I found the answer.

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Wow

Post author By seedthrower1
Post date 08/20/2010
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Today was a great day for me, and I hope you had a great one too. First off, I had a meeting with some folks to discuss the possibility of making Faith Fighting Diabetes a reality here in Carroll County. As I gave them the background of this heartfelt desire I have, I could see the concept was resonating with them. It was awesome.

Just to fill you in, I was away on retreat at the beginning of the summer. I was a bit bored one day (it happens on silent retreats), and I started flipping through a magazine in the retreat center library. I saw a small advertisement for an organization called Faith Fights Diabetes.

Although I probably shouldn’t have, I ripped the ad out, and put it in my wallet. When I got home, one of the first things I did was jump on-line to check this organization’s website out. I was really impressed with what I saw. In a nutshell, the website was all about encouraging the leaders of faith communities to educate their congregations about diabetes. Statistics show that people trust their faith leaders more than they do their doctors. Go figure.

Continue reading “Wow”

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I’m addicted

I guess I better confess… I’ve got an addiction… I’m hooked on the TV reality show, Top Chef. Sorry if I scared you 🙂

I first started watching when I found out one of our local chefs was competing. As it turned out, he lost, but the whole concept of a bunch of chefs showing their culinary mastery week after week was fascinating to me, and I kept coming back for more.

This past spring, I had the chance to visit Volt, the restaurant owned by chef Bryan Voltaggio. He was the runner-up on Season 6, ultimately losing to his brother Michael. Well, let’s just say it was one of the best meals I ever had.

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Time to Recharge

I wish I could do some traveling right about now. No luck this year. I’m taking this week off, but I’m staying around the house. I have a lot of catch-up work to do, and I’ve got a sick dog. Oh well.

More than anything else, I just need some down time. Like just about everyone I know, it seems like we continue to jump from thing to thing, taking each day as it comes. It’s hard to see the transformation in that. More like just getting through another day. Not the best way to live, and that’s why we need a recharge from time to time.

This past weekend, I was with a great group of college students making a retreat. It was wonderful to have the chance to spend some time with them, and I’m really looking forward our interactions in the fall. One of the things that was discussed several times throughout the weekend was the importance of balance. I don’t think there’s many people who are called to juggle as much as active college students do. Ah, but they have youthful energy and can recharge much faster than the rest of us. Well, most of them.

This week, I hope to finalize some of the changes I want to make on my blog. I’m planning a few dinners as well, and hopefully we’ll use up some of my tomatoes which seem to be especially bountiful this year. I’m thinking a nice marinara sauce, bruschetta, gazpacho. The list goes on…

I hope you have a very blessed week, and get the chance for a little recharge yourself. If you don’t think you have the time, use one of the 3 minute retreats from Loyola Press. They’re great.

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Take the Chance

Sorry I haven’t been posting every day. I’m laying some things out to update my blog, and, well, all this planning is seriously eating into my “blog” time.

A little advice. If you’re thinking about starting a blog, I’d say that they’re a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. But it’s worth doing if you have some idea that can help people. We all know there are lots of people who need some help right now, folks like you and me who are looking for a transformation, to get unstuck from where they are right now. They want to move forward, and are searching for ideas.

Even though we’re moving into the height of summer, the fall will be here before we know it 🙁 I’ve always liked making personal changes that coincide with the seasons, so I guess that’s why I’m deep into working through my planned updates to this blog. I can’t wait for you to see them.

I was having a conversation with a friend last night, and we were talking about taking changes. He’s definitely looking to get unstuck and wants to be excited about his future. Like so many people, he doesn’t have a lot of encouragement coming his way, and that’s too bad, because he needs it.

We talked about ideas for the future, brainstormed about options, and dreamed about potential. It was an exciting conversation. Is there something that you’ve wanted to do for a long time but haven’t followed through and brought it to fruition? I want to encourage you to start developing a plan. Pray about it. Think it through. Start talking to people about it. Take the chance. Most transformations don’t take place overnight, and they usually involve quite a bit of planning. Use these wonderful, relaxing and restful summer days to start thinking about your future. Trust that better days are yet to come!