Weird connections

I never watch the news, and I avoid reading it as much as possible.

It depresses me.

There is nothing much I can do. I pray for God to take care of us. All the time I pray this. I see little point in watching the news and fretting over the state of the world. My letters and calls to my senators are worthless. My great-New-York-state senators do not share my viewpoints. My prayers are to the almighty God who created the universe and sustains it. I'm banking on Him.

However, the other day I turned on the TV in the morning. It was last week, Friday morning. We are in February break this week, which is a wonderful, beautiful, marvelous thing. Last Thursday night, it snowed some, so on Friday morning I turned on the TV in my bedroom to check and see if, by any chance, there was a snow day and thus an early start to the school break.

In the rolling banner on the bottom of the screen, instead of school closings, there was a story about an airplane that had crashed in Buffalo, actually in Clarence, a suburb of Buffalo. It was coming from Newark (NYC/New Jersey), and it crashed into a house in Clarence at 10:30 p.m. Thursday night, killing one person on the ground and all 48 people on the plane.

This bothered me because we have actually been to Clarence, to hear our children play with their school's Symphonic Band at a joint concert with the Clarence band. Also, it bothered me because Shawn often flies on little commuter flights between the small central New York cities (Buffalo, Albany, Rochester, Syracuse) and hubs in NYC. I felt kind of sick.

But it gets worse.

DJ recently auditioned with professor Chris Vadala for a spot in the jazz studies program at the University of Maryland, College Park. He and Chris have a great relationship, and he was accepted into this very competitive program.

Well, Chris used to play with the Chuck Mangione Band; he was their reed man. He also did arranging for them. Recently, when they played a concert in town, Chris was here, too. DJ got to go to the concert, and Chris took him backstage and introduced him to the band. DJ shook hands with the guitar player, Coleman Mellett, whom he said was, "Awesome."

Well, the Chuck Mangione band was scheduled to appear with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra this past weekend, on Friday the 13th. Coleman Mellett and Gerry Niewood (the sax player) were on their way there for the concert on Thursday night when their plane crashed.

They were on the plane that crashed. That I actually saw the news story about, early in the morning on Friday. Friday the 13th. I am not superstitious or anything. Really. God is in control, not a date on the calendar. Anyway, they died on the 12th.

But this is just so weird. So weird. What are the chances? That a plane would go down? That it would have people on it that my son has met in the jazz world? That I would see the story on TV when I never watch the news? What are the chances??

The chances are so slight, I have to believe that God is communicating something. But I just don't know what.