A response to Monday's tragic events

I’ve been up late writing books
All about heroes and crooks
One of them saves you from this
The other one steals you and then
Sure things fall
And all sure things fall…
~Yellowcard

I’ve been using my webmail account with Yahoo to communicate with people from work and you all at home in the States. When I arrived at work yesterday morning, I opened Yahoo.com’s frontpage to access my webmail. In the middle of the page was a story on the shootings that had occurred at Virginia Tech. If you are not prepared to read through heavy and difficult things, I would stop here. The rest of this post describes my reaction to this shooting…

Since that first story, I’ve been following the media’s coverage online and praying for the people involved and affected by this profound tragedy. I wish the shooter could have been stopped sooner somehow. I was affected by the story of Liviu Librescu, the professor that blocked the doorway with his body, in an attempt to buy his student more time while he was killed. In an interview of one of the survivors of the attack, the interviewee kept repeating the word ‘surreal’ when describing the situation. I can’t really imagine what the students in those classrooms felt. Having gone to Univ. of Pittsburgh, and having had friends that attended VT, this event really hits home for me. In a way, being over in Japan has isolated me from the constant wave of media and attention surrounding the shootings. Still, it seems much more tangible than the many lives that are ending each day in Iraq. In some ways, I wish that the death toll that the Iraqi people and our military and its allies have experienced would impact me in a similar way. I’m afraid that I grow numb to repeated tragedies all too easily.

In the face of difficult circumstances, like this shooting, I am forced to think of things bigger than myself; things like the value of a human life, the danger and consequence of hatred, and the uncertainty of each day. It strips away my unconscious assumptions of invincibility and complete self-reliance. My carefully cultivated mentality that death is too far removed to even be considered breaks down.

I believe that it’s possible for a person to be evil. Yes, there is confusion, pain, ignorance, and depression. Beyond that, people have the choice to do right, to love each other and to love God, or to do what's wrong. I believe that apart from God’s grace and help to change, humanity falls short of perfection; even the ‘good’ people that do ‘good’ things. I realize that I don’t know the hearts of other people, so let me speak of my own. Unfortunately, I have seen the influence and effects of sin in my own life; I have seen my own imperfections. I’m convinced that I need the forgiveness and redemption that’s found in Christ alone. I honestly don’t know where else to turn… The hope and peace that He holds makes the senseless, horrible actions that the killer planned and carried out seem all the more disturbing and tragic.

May God’s hope and mercy find and help us all.