[Please forgive my intermittent blog posts these days - our new baby has been a joyful handful and leisure time has shrunk, as I imagine many of you understand well.  Regular posts will begin again very soon, so thanks for your patience.  But today, a special treat: This guest post is from Katie Rice, my wife and a humanitarian songwriter who was so moved by the picture below that she wrote a song about it.  Any and all donations made to her noisertrade account will be donated to UNICEF and their ongoing efforts to bring hope and healing in Haiti.]

Today marks the 2 year anniversary since the devastating 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti.  I wrote the song “Hold On” shortly after, inspired by the story of Kiki, a seven-year old boy who was pulled from the rubble 7 days after the earthquake struck.  I can remember seeing the picture of Kiki being rescued.  That image will stay with me forever.

What must it have been like for Kiki to be trapped beneath his home for 7 days?  To hold and sing to his four-year old brother, Titite, who died in Kiki’s arms before rescuers could get to them?  To hold on to the belief that there was still a chance he’d make it out?

No one should ever have to experience that kind of horror, especially not a little boy.  But even amidst that unthinkable tragedy, the look on Kiki’s face when he was pulled out of the rubble was beautiful.  Joyful.  Unforgettable.

According to USAID, the January 12, 2010, earthquake in Haiti was the largest urban disaster in modern history.  The earthquake affected an estimated 3 million people, including approximately 1.5 million people displaced to 1,300 settlement sites throughout Port-au-Prince.  222,570 people were killed.  Tens of thousands of children were orphaned, and thousands more died after the quake due to disease and lack of resources.

As the world moves on and we are bombarded by more sad stories from around the world, we can tend to forget the many continuing to suffer from past disasters.  But millions of Haitians live in a world still turned completely upside down by what happened two years ago.

The homeless, the orphaned, the sick, the grieving.  Let’s pause today and remember those that suffered and died in the earthquake.  And let’s do something together to support the organizations dedicated to providing aid to those continuing to pick up the pieces of this disaster.

I am giving my song  “Hold On” away for free via noisetrade.  However, if you choose to leave a tip on my noisetrade page, 100% of the money I receive from your tips will go to UNICEF and it’s Haiti Earthquake Fund.  Or if you don’t want to tip me, just download the song and then head to UNICEF directly to donate.  

Also, please spread the word about my song as a way to remind others about the millions impacted in the Haiti earthquake that still need our help.  Thanks so much!  –Katie

In almost every case, I have a choice as to what I give my attention to.  So if I’m distracted, then I’m to blame for not taking full responsibility for my life and choosing wisely, actively, consistently, where my attention goes rather than letting it drift passively from one shiny, noisy thing to the next.  This reality could be represented this way:

Distraction = Not taking responsibility for my attention.

Conversely, I could say:

Focus = Taking full responsibility for my attention.

Of course there are those of us genuinely plagued by things like Attention Deficit Disorder.  We may need extra help, manufactured or otherwise, to give us the chemical or emotional stability needed to choose wisely.  Nothing wrong with that.

But if we qualify as a self-aware person, then we have to admit our attention is our responsibility.  (If meds are needed to help us with that, then we still must choose whether or not to use them).

What tasks, people, objects, or feelings will you give your attention to today?  Are each of those tasks, people, objects, or feelings really worthy of your attention?  It might be helpful to make a list of the stuff that fills up your mind and take a good look at what’s actually there.

We’ve all got a finite amount of time, energy, and resources.  I want to use mine to attend to things that matter most.

I wanted let you know the my wife, Katie, wrote and recorded a BEAUTIFUL Christmas song that I think you might really enjoy.

It’s called Sweet Night and it has been used in Christmas Eve services across the country, featured on a Dutch TV show seen by 1.7 million people, and voted #1 by editors on CDbaby’s Holiday Charts.

You can download it temporarily for FREE right HERE from NoiseTrade.com

I love it when technology (YouTube) comments on technology (iPhone app). Here’s Pomplamoose, one of my favorite YouTube sensations (and some fantastic musicians and just to toot my own horn I use to sing with Nataly when she was part of the college ministry I worked with and just to let you know how dense I am I had no idea she was doing the highly-successful Pomplamoose thing until about a year ago.  Also, they have graduated from YouTube sensations to full on touring.  See their schedule HERE.)

With humor, flair, serious creativity, and truly excellent musicianship, Pomplamoose shows us how to tame those Angry Birds.

When I’m feeding him a bottle of his mother’s milk at ungodly hours of the morning, he scowls at me like I just put a dent in his car and won’t ‘fess up.

When he sleeps, his arms hang in perfect little “L”s to either side of him, as though he’s flexing for an adoring audience.

When I change his diaper, I am in awe of the process that turns breast milk – “liquid gold”, as they call it – into guacamole.  ‘Cause that’s what it is: guacamole.  Somebody pass me some tortilla chips.

And that’s pretty much all my 11-week-old-son does: eats, sleeps, and poops.  And do you know how that makes me feel?

“This is my son, whom I love.  With him I am well-pleased.”

That little ball of baby fat rolls can’t do a thing but I am madly, passionately, ridiculously, embarrassingly in love with him.  More so every day.

Now, I’ve heard other dads say things like, “I never really understood my Heavenly Father’s love for me until I became a Father.  Now I get it.”

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I still don’t “get it”.  I still don’t seem to have formed whatever neural or spiritual pathways that would be responsible for allowing feelings of deep, deep love to pour into my heart and splash over the sides onto others.

But I know it has something to do with how I feel about Ryder James.  He’s totally helpless, can’t keep a job, never cleans up after himself, refuses to lead a small group at church, but I can’t imagine being any happier with him.  I turn into a pile of goo just thinking about him.

Sometimes it all makes me feel like I’ve stumbled upon a deep vein of gold and all I’ve got is a rusty spoon to try get the rich stuff out.

Jesus, help me “get it” even more today.