Over on Brave Heart, a long time friend, Gary Sweeten, posted this week several times about the impact of the Virginia Tech shooting tragedy. His post prompted me to reflect as follows:
Hello, Gary.
Well, I was waiting for your response to the tragic events in Blacksburg. Somehow, I knew you would write (probably more than once over the next few days and weeks, eh?). Glad you did.
There will be political-jockeying, name-calling, or finger-pointing, blame-laying, etc., over the next few months about this incident. Such is the nature of a free society, and thankfully so. All that aside, objectively, IMHO, it should be noted that GWB's comments at the VT convocation yesterday afternoon were among the most grown-up utterings from any public or private figure on any subject currently in the public discourse. No malice of forethought, no direct playing to special groups whose understanding of Truth starts with the self, no attempt to cover for irresponsible acts. Just compassion! How refreshing.
What can be known about this situation for sure, is that God is Merciful. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
"3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement,
4 who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God.
5 For as Christ's sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ does our encouragement also overflow.
6 If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer.
7 Our hope for you is firm, for we know that as you share in the sufferings, you also share in the encouragement,
8 ... we were utterly weighed down beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life.
9 ... we ... trust not in ourselves but in God who raises the dead." (2Cor 1:3-9)
As I reflected on the events so far at VT, I was reminded also of this simple exposition on the "human condition by Cisterian monk Thomas Keating:
"At every moment of our lives, God is asking 'Where are you? Why are you hiding?' All the questions that are fundamental to human happiness arise when we ask ourselves this excruciating question: Where am I? Where am I in relation to God, to myself, and to others? These are the basic questions of human life."
And further, "happiness is intimacy with God, the experience of God's loving presence. Without that experience, nothing else quite works; with it, almost anything works."
"This is the human condition - to be without the true source of happiness, which is the experience of the presence of God, and to have lost the key to happiness, which is the contemplative dimension to life, the path to the increasing assimilation and enjoyment of God's presence."
(The Human Condition: Contemplation and Transformation by Thomas Keating, ISBN-13: 978-0809105083)
There will likely be communal and deeply personal despair, much unimaginable pain and suffering among those personally effected by the VT shooting tragedy. There will also likely by forgiveness (consider the response of the Amish community in Pennsylvania who lost many young children at the hands of a desperate man last year). The suffering and the forgiveness are both gifts from a Merciful God, Who is Love, Who is Truth. A Personal God Who Suffered and Forgave!
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Also glad you related the stories about Sawyer Hall (I lived there in 1971). 'Cause I have had something on my mind regarding your UC era posts of the last month. All these years, though we have not known each other deeply, I had no idea how personal and scary that time was for you. Reading your posts has compelled me to examine my own reactions from that period, and to wonder about the truth of a quip a friend of mine repeats often, "You are where you were when."
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