I wanted to see the weather this morning. I mean, I knew it was cold and wet and snowing and white everywhere (this is the middle of April for goodness sake. Enough already.), but I didn't know for how long or how bad it was going to be. I also knew that part of Binghamton lost power and I was wondering how much and for how long.
So I wanted to see the weather this morning. After all, my paying job is as a waiter and these things effect business. With all the snow, nobody wants to go out to eat and so it will be slower. Knowing how long the weather will be bad helps me understand if business might pick up as the day goes on or if I should try and get myself out of there as quick as I can and make up the hours on days when I might actually make more money. On the other hand, if the power is out people are more likely to go out to eat. Some people have electric stoves and who wants to eat in the dark. So is the power out a short lived thing or will it take a while to get it back up. These things effect business.
So I wanted to see the weather this morning...
But when I turned on the news, I forgot all about the weather. It's happened again. Every news station was centered on the enfolding action down at Virginia Tech. How many times will our lives be shocked by the disheartening drama of another killing on another campus?
I am grateful it was slow today at work. My attention was turned to the slowly increasing information coming in about this latest demonstration of the cancer that is eating away at our society. How do you try to be cheerful at a table of guests who just want to come in and get good food when your heart is breaking for the families of the steadily increasing number of victims you are hearing about? How can you try to squeeze another appetizer or dessert (and therefore a few more cents in tip) from one of the few tables I do have when my prayers are going to the dozens of victims who have been rushed to the hospitals? How do we just go on with business as usual? Is it right? I don't know, but it is.
For Columbine, America stopped. But the consistant repitition of this tragic story with only changing names and situations and numbers has numbed our hearts to the reality this is. The reality that thirty-three families are now going to have to learn to go on without someone they treasured so dearly. The reality that dozens, no hundreds, of others are now scarred by the emotional (and in some cases physical) trauma of living through this horror while so many of their classmates and friends did not. The reality that this is another symptom of a greater disease that is eating away at the decaying heart of our society.
So do we go on with business as usual? Maybe. For those lucky enough not to be directly involved (this time) with this tragedy. But for at least today, at least as you get done reading this I ask you, I beg you, to stop. And pause. And pray.
Pray for those who have had a part of their heart ripped out of them as a sibling, or child, or lover, or friend has been taken from this life.
Pray for the hearts and minds of those who will be waking up in the cold sweat of another nightmare evening after evening as the emotional trauma or even physical injury has forever changed their life.
Pray for this nation, and this society, and this generation of lost students who desperately need God.
Very well said. My prayers are on those who have lost someone dear to them today. And my prayers are also on this nation for it's becoming more and more corrupt by the minute, unfortunately. This world needs to change, otherwise we will be doomed. -.-
It's sad. I know people who go to v-tech (everyone's fine). Not sure what the solution is to all of this. Probably better gun control. Is it odd that I feel the worst for the gunman's family? I mean, they lost their son too, and how do you deal with that when you find out your son was also a killer of 31 people?
Apr 16, 2007 4:41 PM Someone decided to play God today not the Father Creator wonder-Giver-of-life but an illiterate perversion to take A Daughter, A Son, A Spouse, A dream, A future, An unwritten book of lives denied and all the ripples/wingbeats that would have been erased in hostile brutality
To assuage God-knows-what pain or insanity, deserved or not but a mistakenly treated diagnosis to mete out a lash as if that is the answer It never is. God will tell you that.
To self-imbue, to violate in honor of mistakenly perceived self-divinity is wrong wrong wrong Hear the mocking reproach written with tears. Your cure will not be at the end of the trail once you have shouldered your aggression with intent to aim and destroy. It will be dust in your mouth and a hole burned in your brain.
You cannot heal by applying the blood of others You cannot hear if you damn the innocent to silence Deny light to others and you will never see through their eyes You will have no hope no hope if you deny that Love is Revolutionary
Someone decided to play god today and it was not good.
My thoughts.. for whatever they're worth. We cannot change people until we start to change people. We cannot take morals and values out of the equation and expect that they will somehow creep up in compromised situations. We cannot assume that someone else will teach or instill values... Godly or not into our children. No police or campus security could have pervented what was clearly a lack of values and severe depression. What people desperately need is hope. He was clearly lacking.
