Have you ever heard the analogy that Jesus is speaking to us and giving us graces all the time, 24/7, but unless we are tuned in, we miss a lot of what He is saying? I’ve heard it compared to the radio airwaves. The music or talk shows on the radio are circulating all around us, but unless we have the radio turned on and tuned in to that specific frequency, we really never know it is there.

On this particular morning, I drove my teenage daughter to summer school. Although history and social studies were my most favorite classes in high school, she apparently finds them unbearable. So she managed to get them out of the way more quickly in the summer sessions – leaving her more flexibility with what she could take during the full school year.

During the regular school year, she usually went to school early when her mom left for work, leaving me complete access to the bathroom! (I am the only male in a house with a single bathroom and three females, although thankfully the two year old hasn’t yet staked her claim to the bathroom as is the birthright of any of us fortunate enough to be born with the X chromosome).

My regular morning routine usually consisted of turning on the radio in the bathroom after the other girls left and before the third girl woke up. Through my morning of showering and getting ready, I listened to an AM talk radio station out of Cleveland. On this particular summer week, my wife was on vacation and able to sleep in, so I offered to take our daughter to summer school myself. Because she did not have to be to school as early as during the regular year and because my wife was sleeping in, out of husband-ly courtesy, I chose to forego my daily morning routine of listening to the radio blare out from the bathroom.

Also, because my wife was on vacation, I was allowed to drive her car in the mornings! She doesn’t share my same tastes in radio.  So sometimes when driving her car I tune the radio to my regular station, but often I do not.

On this particular day after dropping off our daughter at summer school, something told me to turn the radio on and tune in to my AM station. When I did, I caught the tail end of an interview with a Cleveland attorney about his firm’s charitable donations to Ohio charities taken from unclaimed class action settlements.  This lawyer is a very good friend of my own boss who had told me about this program a few months before, but I completely forgot about it until hearing the end of this interview. I have not heard anything about the program since then from any radio program or newspaper articles, so had I not turned the radio on at the very moment I did, I would likely have missed the boat entirely.

I am the chairperson of my parish Social Concerns team and this is one area where we might be able to help bring money to charities in our local community that we otherwise would not have been able to. Something I am going to have to look into!

Praise God!