[This story is part of the collection of faith stories found at keys2heaven.com, a place where you can share your own journey of faith. Every month, the nationally-known piano duo, the O'Neill Brothers, pick one of the contributed stories and write an original piano composition to accompany it. The story of Michael Biasini is the story for September. The stories and music are available for a subscription, and the entire inspiring package will be wrapped up in a compilation CD and accompanying booklet in November, 2008. The music is also available as mp3 downloads.]

Put another way, we’re in the garden, where so many commercials are the red apple-offering us a bright, shiny new identity, a better self, in sum, something apart or “more” than the fundamental and ultimate identity we are: the image of God in Christ. Partaking of the apple, on those terms, leaves us alienated. And so many artificial realities keep us intoxicated to our state of alienation. In short, alienation becomes our normal experience.

Consider the multi-billion dollar movie industry. We’re drawn to movies and drama because, in some sense, they give us reprieve from our own reality. They perpetuate the fog. It’s so much easier to live another’s life than our own. This is punctuated by the prevalence of cyber-contact (email, facebook, text-messaging, etc.), which surpasses real connection by 1000 to 1. All this keeps us distracted from our own, ultimate drama. As JPII astutely noted, the ultimate drama of the human race, the one in which each of us are inescapably playing a leading role of eternal consequence, is alienation versus participation.

So, as I see it, after so much feeding on the blue pill, eating the apple, we’re living in a condition of amnesia. Individually and corporately, we’ve forgotten who we are. As such we remain vulnerable to every suggestion of who we might be. Advertisers understand this. It’s in their financial interest to perpetuate our blue pill-like fog.

While subjectively and superficially we may be feeling good, in these dungeons of alienation our souls cry out for participation. We yearn for reunion of body and spirit in accord with our design, with who we are. If there’s any doubt about this design, take a look at Wall Street. When a system has a bug it crashes. Well, behind the crashing of Wall Street is the crashing of our (God-designed) humanity. On one side are those offering the red apples promising a shiny, better identity, on the other are the masses alienated from their ultimate identity, and as such are literally buying into the false promise of the apple.

Be not afraid! All this proclaims our God-given design. The fundamentals are in place! As C.S. Lewis noted, we can not break the law, we can only break ourselves against the law. Artificiality, greed and alienation simply do not work… even in the structures of this world. The market and every other institution will crash so long as they are defined and driven by a counterfeit human reality.

Anchored in our design we can find hope. We can find love, our God who is love. Love is a real person. Love is found in Presence. It compels us to know who we are, that we would readily sacrifice ourselves for the good of another… not simply as a practiced ethic, but in a way that naturally flows from who we are. While those of us blessed with knowledge and grace know the ultimate reality is found and nourished in the Real Presence, this same yearning at the anthropological-cultural level is revealed in proliferation of reality TV, which reveals a collective humanity yearning to peal back the layers of artificiality and connect with something, someone, real.

True reality, at every level, is a participation in God. It can only lead more fully into God. As such, reality TV (so understood) offers us a medium where we can more fully discover ourselves and connect with others- find ourselves united with all who aspire to truly be “real,” to participate in God… even if that means suffering, and ugly, and struggle. Isn’t that what the cross proclaims, knowing that it is the path to eternal beatitude?

For me all this came together this past summer when I fell nine feet from a ladder and broke my wrist in three places, one bone in over 30 pieces, accompanied by breaking five ribs. Married with six children and self employed, I immediately found myself more radically dependent upon God than ever before. All my life I was mesmerized by the big… big events, big movies, doing big things in the world. My companies had contributed to the successes of a number of “big dramas” (Disney, Warner Brothers, A&E, & HBO), but this incident brought me low enough to see the trees from the forest. Through my fall God summoned me to the grandeur of something supremely big in the small: his presence in one, individual person.

I spiritually felt my life being moved in a different direction. Living in Erie, Pennsylvania, something moved me one night to go to our Celebrate Erie 2008, and to bring a camera. There I was overcome by the magnificence of so many people, different races, genders, ages, sizes…. I was overcome by the awareness that God purposefully created each one. I was overcome by the sense that each person was a unique treasure, and that my life would be richer or poorer based upon my discovery of that treasure.

From my comfortable boat I stepped out on the water, identified a number of people and, in front of the camera, simply got in there. I knew what I was suppose to do. Within a week I contacted three of the people and asked if I could follow them for six weeks, find out what made them tick, discover that treasure and share it with the world. And so ErieAlityTV.com was born-reality TV with a mission to proclaim the “big” that is found in every individual person. With what remaining pennies I could muster, I built the site and purchased 11 billboards throughout the City.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FhFBNsxZ0E[/youtube]

Every Wednesday you’ll find a new, 10 minute episode following the lives of three, very different people. Paul Lorei is a gifted photographer who, with his wife Gretchen, have a unique vision for home life that excludes television, and focuses on home schooling. This environment he attributes to the emerging successes of their children-the two oldest of whom are making their marks nationally, one as a recording artist, the other as a professional soccer player. Contrast this with EJ McMillen, a tattoo-clad, pierced, aspiring rock star who was raised without a father (prison), and now at the age of 25 has a prison record, is a father of three children from three different mothers, lives off of SSI, and plays video games 16 hours a day. Then there’s Roy Hollis, Jr., who overcame stuttering to become an award-winning singer. In a bi-racial marriage, his music brings people together throughout the country, and his next, greatest battle has been helping his brother battle cancer.

In each of these you will find God. If you’re like me and the thousands of others who have visited the site in the past week alone, each person will move you in a different way, awaken you from alienation to a magnificent participation, connect you to the Real Presence lived out in the Real World. If it does that for even one person, I will consider this a tremendous success and give glory to God. Go there and journey with us.

I would like to say that I was a “perfectly normal,” healthy baby, ready to take on the world. But instead, I was born with multiple deformities. My eyes were on the sides of my head, and I had holes where my nose was supposed to be. I had a club foot and was missing toes. Also, three of my fingers were missing. A cleft palate had an opening in my top lip and extended all the way to the right eye.

Unfortunately, even one leg was shorter than the other.

The hospital staff, I was told, thought I had too many problems to survive. The doctors, in fact, refused to show me to my parents and, incredulously, even gave my parents forms to sign to “give me up for science.”

I can only thank God that my parents had other plans for my life. I belonged to them and to God. They intended to love and accept me just as I was, despite acknowledging that it would be a long, hard road ahead.

When I began school, I was placed in a special-education classroom. Aside from being labeled a “special-ed” kid, I endured constant ridicule from other students who called me “stupid,” “ugly” and “retarded” because of my looks.

A milestone in fourth grade was the “miracle” that my parents and I had longed for. I was selected to undergo a surgery that would resculpt my entire face with bone grafts. The surgery was life-threatening and lasted ten hours. I survived this operation, my eighteenth, which really changed my life.

While I now faced a new chapter in my life from a physical perspective, I hadn’t seen the end of my trials. Within the next few years, my mother developed cancer and died, but not before instilling in me a sense of worth and the determination never to give up.

These words eventually impacted my life when I decided on a career. In fact, my father advised, “Mike, you would make a great special-ed teacher.” I knew what it was like to be a special-ed child.

I now teach in the same school district as my wife. My classroom is a kaleidoscope of children with special needs — emotional, physical and mental. I love to see my students’ smiling faces when they learn something new.

I’ve now gone through twenty-nine surgeries. While many have brought a lot of pain to my life, the fact that I have survived them all only seems to reiterate to me that God has a purpose for my life. I see my purpose being fulfilled one child at a time.

I may not have been a “perfectly normal” healthy baby, but thanks to God and to people like my mom. The motto she gave me will always be the motto I use in my own classroom: Never give up.

[This story is part of the collection of faith stories found at keys2heaven.com, a place where you can share your own journey of faith. Every month, the nationally-known piano duo, the O'Neill Brothers, pick one of the contributed stories and write an original piano composition to accompany it. The story of Michael Biasini is the story for September. The stories and music are available for a subscription, and the entire inspiring package will be wrapped up in a compilation CD and accompanying booklet in November, 2008. The music is also available as mp3 downloads.]

Michael and Brenda Hainsey were grieving the loss of their son Chris.  They knew he was with God, but prayed for a connection.  What's the likelihood that a rare and fragile sand dollar would survive crashing ocean waves, and be discovered in answer to a prayer? This sets the stage for the fourth and latest story-song installment  by Keys2Heaven.com, leading up to release of the compiled 12 track CD, Stories of Faith: 12 Songs Inspired by You!

Michael, wife Brenda and son Chris spent much time on the beach.  They understood the symbolism of a sand dollar, which is often called the "Holy Ghost Shell," because of its religious symbolism and markings. The outline etched into the top resembles an Easter Lily, the center is the star of Bethlehem, the five oval holes the wounds Christ suffered on the cross. The opposite side resembles the Poinsettia of Christmas. If broken open, the little pieces inside resemble white doves. 

Mike Hainsey writes:

In October 2005 our son, Chris, a gifted musician, left this world to be with our Lord, his 5 ½ year battle with brain cancer over. In the time since his death Brenda and I struggled with this terrible loss. Dealing with his death is far more difficult than dealing with his disease because there is no hope to see him again on this earth.

We know the logic–that Chris is with God, perfect once again and free from all earthly ills. But the emotion of missing him is often overpowering. Like most parents who lost a child we would often pray for a sign or signal that once again connects us with our son. We hoped for some sort of reassurance that all would be ok. In our case, we had been to the ocean dozens of times with Chris, either visiting family or just to walk Sanibel Island looking for shells. So Brenda asked for God to send us a sign in the form of a sand dollar. She wanted to find one on the beach.

I grew up on the east coast of Florida, and the surf is too rough to find shells that are intact, especially ones as fragile as a sand dollar. In all my years there I had never seen one intact.

One morning, exactly 6 months after his death, we found ourselves on the beach in Florida. I went for a walk just before sunrise, hoping for a prayerful time to help get me through this "anniversary". The tide was out, and the beach was littered with pieces of seashells broken by the surf. It was a beautiful morning, and I was on a quiet, deserted section. At that point I stopped, turned toward the rising sun, and said a prayer. In this prayer I told God that I knew we were not worthy, but knew that all things are possible in Him. So I asked him to make Brenda's prayer for a sign come true.

I finished my prayer and turned to continue my walk. I took about ten steps when directly in front of me was, you guessed it, a fully intact sand dollar. At first I just stood there. Then I slowly bent down and gently picked it up, tears swelling inside me. How was this possible? You know the answer.

Now, some will read this with skepticism and conclude that this was merely a coincidence, that two grieving parents want to make it more than it is. That's fine. But Brenda and I believe it is a prayer answered. I can tell you stories from other grieving parents with similar "coincidences". We quit believing in coincidences years ago.

I first began assembling this story on Easter Monday, 2008.  While on the phone with Mike finding out more details of the story, my partner Tim O’Neill called me (Tim O’Neill of The O’Neill Brothers—who is scoring the selected stories).  He shared that in the week prior he was thinking of adding another instrument for the fourth song.  “Something” or “Someone” moved him to choose tenor sax, prior to learning that tenor sax was Chris’ instrument of choice!  Moments later Mike sent me an email noting that that day, the first day after Easter, was the anniversary of discovering the Sand Dollar! There are no coincidences.

Please give yourself a very moving experience-go now and view the 6 minute video tribute to Chris' faith-filled life, The Sand Dollar in K2H Theater (view with free registration).  At the end you'll hear a beautifully haunting segment of "Amazing Grace"- which is from Chris' senior year recital.  Also, be one of the first to hear LIVE from Paddy O'Neill's Irish Pub – a nationally syndicated Christian radio program from Keys2Heaven.com.  The April program features The Sand Dollar, and last month's, A Boy, A Duck and A Prayer, submitted by Patti Armstrong.  Submit your inspiring story now. Right now we're looking for inspiring stories about mothers for Mother's Day.

Linda Pollari shares, "My father, 89-year old Vernon Braun, always believed that if something was meant to be, it will happen. His faith has served him well over the years and recently brought love back into his life — love he thought was lost years before."

It was the summer of 1940. Vernon and Rita met at a 4-H event in Doyle, Minnesota. She was 100% Irish Catholic, and he 100% German Lutheran, but that didn't stop them from becoming high school sweethearts. Faith was always a common thread, a belief in what was meant to be. Their "country courtship" consisted of long walks down country driveways, and a movie or two. But World War II cut their romance short, taking him overseas for over four years.

While on tour, Vernon knew that there was no distance that prayer could not bridge. In addition to the guardian angels he knew were watching over him, he carried Rita's notes, along with a lock of her red hair across Europe-dreaming of the day when he would return and make Rita his wife.

However, war takes its toll. People change. Life moves on. Rita was not ready to be married. Heartbroken, both entrusted this to God as another "meant to be" and went their separate ways.

In the years that followed, both found their respective spouses and lived long, faith-filled, married lives — over 50 years each. Vernon and wife Irma had a son and a daughter; Rita and Jim raised four daughters in Dayton, Ohio.

"Decades passed. Both lived full, separate lives, with the keepsakes of their young romance stuffed away. Rita's daughters would occasionally come across Vernon's picture when rummaging through a box of aging photos. Vernon stored the wartime bundle of letters, photos and Rita's red tendril in a trunk." (McGuire)

After Vernon's wife died in 2001, he came across the red lock again — a warm remembrance of a faithful friend from many years ago. His daughter, Linda Pollari, tracked down Rita in Dayton, Ohio, where she was caring for her husband, Jim, who had suffered from a series of strokes. With Jim's blessing, their friendship was reestablished at a time when both needed it the most. Vernon's daughter Linda shares, "Rita helped Dad through the grief of Mother's passing and Dad helped her with the anxiety and stresses of caring for Jim."

Jim was called home to heaven in 2004. Shortly after, Rita moved back to Minnesota to be near her family. Vernon and Rita's friendship continued to grow. He would bring her roses and other thoughtful gifts, and she soon became "the envy of her senior apartment complex, many of whom are widows longing for a companion." (McGuire)

At Thanksgiving in 2006, Vernon shared with Rita his dreams for the rest of his life, and asked her again to marry him. She said no. "[Marriage is] not something you think about when you are over 80 years old." (McGuire) He persisted, giving her a cross he had carved for her many years earlier while a young soldier, and a heart-shaped locket engraved with his pledge of eternal love.

They did a lot of talking and praying, and one night while Rita looked at her first husband's picture, she could almost hear him say, "Rita, do it."

When God is the source, love never fails. She said yes in October, 2007. The two said, "I do," Saturday, January 12th, 2008. It was meant to be.

For more stories and information on the project, visit www.keys2heaven.com.

What YouTube reveals is a humanity that is wandering, having lost Due North, lost its moral compass and searching for identity — but as lost and searching as they are, it is where they may be found.  If the first century A.D. had YouTube, it's where St. Paul would have set up shop.

It is where Google has set up shop — at the cost of $1.65 billion for the opportunity to advertise on this new mass media, emphasis on "mass."  Among the thousands who broadcast themselves and the millions who watch, are some looking for distraction — an anesthetic from their sense of mortality and incompleteness. Others look to connect — to be part of something bigger than themselves.  Google just looks to sell.  But at least advertisers have a message and they are trying to connect with an audience.

What about us?  Do we have a message?  Our faith tells us that we do.  A message and mission.  That brings us to the core of our own identity crisis.  We've forgotten who we are.  The truth is we all yearn more deeply to encounter who we essentially are.  We may have the script and be well-versed in Church teaching and what we're supposed to do.  But if we're honest, there are moments of great disconnect.  We may be suffering our own loss of Due North under the shadow of a "faith" associated with external obligation, with something cold and impersonal, ritual without relationship.  Many of us are bewildered — in the wilderness — and yearning to recover an experience of our identity.

Christ was sent into this tragic situation.  He came into our wilderness.  He came to remind us and to give us an experience of who we are.  He is God's revelation of man to himself.  John Paul II was a champion of the power of human experience, confident that an authentic encounter with human experience would lead people to Jesus Christ, our Polestar.  We would be naturally inclined to mutual, self-giving love.  We would live out of the experience of this Great Mystery: we only find ourselves by losing ourselves.  Where do we find this compass and Due North?  The family.

I can really only speak from my experience.  People often exclaim, "Six kids! In seven years? Don't you have a TV?  Are you from Utah?  How do you do it?"  Experience with our first child was a radical lesson that our time is not our own, nor is our money, our sleep, our energy… our lives!  Each additional child merely put another exclamation point at the end of the sentence.  Dying to self, we experience the Mystery, an exhilarating life in death.  So have others.  Quite often our house is full of people.  They are drawn to this vitality.  They share in it and help bring it about.  They are uplifted and edified by our children who respond to them as they would to a present on Christmas.  Most notably, this "evangelization" is not a stretch, not a plan, not even a conscious thought.  It flows naturally from who we are.

Family is where our compass is calibrated.  Family is the God-given occasion for us to encounter Him who is the true, Due North.  The life we possess is a participation in God.  Family is the sanctuary where this icon and image of the Trinity is encountered and nurtured.  Do more than think about this!  Drown in it.  Explore that place where you so completely uncover your incompleteness (original solitude) that it impels you toward completion (original unity), which is a participation in the inner life of the Trinity.  And what do we find in that place?  The very essence of sexuality.  As John Paul II intimated, the heart of the sexual urge is the urge for completion.  Imagine if the same powerful force driving the porn industry was ordered toward its proper end?  Every knee would bend.  Holiness would spread throughout the planet, as it would be the most natural inclination of humanity.

When Christ came to reveal man to himself, He came into a family and into a story, for every family is the bearer of a story.  The story of Christ is the center of history, but every family story is a strand in the great story God is weaving through time.

In the stories of our grandparents and parents we encounter God and discover or recover our identity.  There is real power here.  A few years ago, a young man asked if my film company would capture the amazing story of his grandparents.  At a young age he had already navigated through some very difficult times, and — like the rest of the YouTube generation — yearned for identity, seeking it through the familiar, natural, medium of film.  Though we had many "big" opportunities on the table, the experience of helping that young man find himself in the story of his own family was so powerful that we concluded nothing is bigger than one family.  We had found Due North and redirected our faith-based film company toward productions which capture a family's story (www.IDVidPro.com/DVDLegacy). 

The story doesn't end there.  Recently the young man graduated from the Catholic University of America.  He had discovered his identity, largely in the story of his grandparents, and became naturally active in Catholic ministry.  This fall he will be entering the John Paul II Institute.

If you are a parent or grandparent, your story is a precious heirloom to pass along to future generations.  The values you lived by, the struggles you have endured, and your advice and counsel is the story that God is telling through you.  You have a message and a mission.  Go into your own family and make disciples.