Another catastrophe devastates us all with its unecessary tragedy today. 33 dead at Virginia Tech.I can only imagine how the people lined up against the wall and executed, or hunted down, felt. I hope I never know, I hope my children never know. I hope we always only can imagine. And this, this thought, is exactly what every person, every parent hopes.
Today, some lost that hope. And that may be the least of the loss.
Gwen said she's so glad to know it's people who kill people, not guns. She begs us to consider the damage the Virginia Tech murderer might have inflicted with a knife.
I said good point.
Jen said God has been noticeably absent.
I said, "It is a tragedy beyond words.
I will say...God gave man freedom of will. This was not God's will; it was man's will. God was not absent. I am sure God was more present than ever. But he will not remove freedom of will. I am sure God was more anguished by heart than any of us, and that's both saying a lot, and very, very cold comfort. If it helps to blame God, that's okay. He can take it. Just remember he is always open.
Right now, the only thing is grief. I say let it wash over us so we feel it and know it, and are changed by it."
Chani, in the midst of her own grief, said, "May there be some peace for all those who died, are wounded, their friends and families." and in her own life, said, "I must find compassion for the hole in his soul. I must. Because it is the only acceptable thing to do. The anger has to stop somewhere."
I said amen.
Bones listed statistics and asked what we should do.
I said listen, pay attention, hope.
I think for the rest of us---those not with a true loss---the biggest challenge is to not feel hopeless. I think, in truth, hopelessness is a direct contributor to this tragedy.
More than ever, I feel the drive to write about justice, and forgiveness. Please join me on Wednesday. This week. I'll list you here, and others, some of whom may really want to read words about this, can find something valuable.
Tomorrow I teach. I teach a class about managing conflict between and among students and their peers. Tonight I stay awake late quickly re-arranging my curriculum and talking points.
Tonight...our best friends came over. We grilled, drank raspberry iced tea, and the kids ran and played. Tonight my five year old's biggest concern was counting how many mosquito bites she had. How beautiful is that.
After dinner, while my friend and I prepared dessert, the dads played silly faux-monster wrestling games with the kids. They wrestled---one man against five kids---in turn. The screaming was delight. The yelling was joy, and fun. This is the sound that rings in my ears.
I never have any promises of anything tomorrow so today, I seized the day. It felt beautiful to find beauty and enjoyment in tonight.
Today is not my grief, but I respect that someone else feels the need to stop all the clocks.
W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
P.S. Please just email me or comment with a link if you wish to participate in our roundtable discussion of justice versus forgiveness: which is more crucial? j pippert at g mail dot com.
copyright 2007 Julie Pippert
Comments
it's forgiveness. it is. it's got to be. justice feels too hard.
But I'm out of words.
Except these: How do we get these f*ing guns off the streets?
I had a friend who went AWOL from the Croatian army. He could do it no more. His intent in life---pre-war, pre-genocide---was to continue his studies in Italy of art, and music, bring beauty to the world. Suddenly, he was engaged in a kill or be killed struggle. So...he put in his first tour of duty and when he was re-upped, he fled. First, to Italy, then to the US via some other European countries. He brought his miraculously still-intact, albeit bruised, soul to us, here, and added richness to our lives.
Another friend of mine, Richard, was from Rwanda. He and his wife came here, by the magic of a visa lottery. Behind, he left an entire family.
He didn't get on well with us, his coworkers, in some ways, and got on better than anyone, in others.
"You take for granted," he told me once, "That work, food, water, and electricity are there for you."
"You take for granted," he told me, "That you leave your hom ein relative safety. You expect to be safe. You are surprised by death and violence. I love and hate most this about you."
I cried. Right there. In the office. I cried. I felt like a sheltered child, despite my own life, which I had considered a little challenging.
I have benefitted, and struggled, with access to a worldview.
But it has helped me to understand the context---historical and current---of tragedy.
I will never be able, I think, to really grasp personal tragedy. How can you? I think the heart never stops bleeding. Mine never has. You just learn to pick up and go on, anyway, despite the hemorrhage.
We drift individually and as a society. We always have.
We are shocked by violence.
I think I love and hate this most about us.
I've recently heard about legislation to take the "right to bear arms" portion more literally and only allow militias to have rights to guns. Grrrreat. Now we force everyone to either go underground, or to organize into a free army.
I will visit on Wednesday, if nothing else.
It is worth exploring.
I would be glad to participate in Wednesday's discussion. However, I don't think they are mutually exclusive ~ the concept of justice or forgiveness. Actually, they are integral parts of each other.
Dualism. That western culture disease.
Oh, yes. I'm willing to explore it as long as I can come up with something reasonably intelligent to say. :)
Thanks for this post.. and thanks for acknowledging my words. They feel rather hollow these days.
Peace,
~Chani
time to learn what happened...
time to process it...
time to respond thoughtfully.
Let us take the time to do these things.
I don't know if I'll be prepared to articulate my thoughts on justice and forgiveness on Wednesday, but I will try.
Oh. And. You know I was being sarcastic, right? about feeling glad that it's not guns that kill people? Right?!?!?
I'm actually looking forward to the justice roundtable; it's been good thinking for me already.
I couldn't help thinking how eerily timely your Justice roundtable was.
The greater question in any school shooting is why, and all the reading I've done in the last 20 hours or so have suggested that the answer is different in nearly every case. There is no magic bullet solution; school shootings exist as a microcosm of violent crime. Some are motivated by greed, jealousy, anger, hatred, frustration, hopelessness, desire for notoriety, etc. The perpetrators range from the quiet to boisterous; from the outcast to the jock; from the remedial to the honor student; from the poor to the rich. They are white, black, Latino, or Asian. They are boys and girls.
In short, school shooters represent a slice of America. It might just be that the only common thread between school shootings is that they happened in schools. And I’m not even sure if that’s good or bad. I suppose it’s good, because it means that kids aren’t planning these things purely for notoriety. One thing that is very interesting: although the average life span of a young male in Anacostia (one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the US, located in Washington, DC) is 39, and shootings among 15-25 year olds happen there nearly every week, only one happened within a school. Maybe if more happened on school property, people would take notice that a Columbine’s worth of deaths happen every week in Baltimore and Washington.
Chani, yours is the only answer that makes sense. It’s got to be a radical cultural change that is not politically charged. Fundamentalist Christians say it’s not about the guns; it’s about violent movies and video games. Hollywood artists say it’s about the guns, not the movies and video games. The NRA says you can’t ignore the second amendment, and the ACLU says you can’t ignore the first amendment. Like most congressional debates, it’s almost pointless to try to have the discussion because we know how everyone will like up, what they will say, and what the outcome will be.
Julie, discussing justice and forgiveness is such a beneficial first step towards renewing culture. My friend Erik started an organization called Brewing Culture; it’s a faith-based creative effort to get the cultural renewal discussion started. Go visit his site if you have time. http://www.brewingculture.org/
And it's just so damn sad. My head hurts from wanting to cry but not being able to, and not really knowing if I have a "right" to, since there are so many people who are directly affected, and I'm so removed from it.
I'd love to be a part of the justice/forgiveness discussion.
Thanks, Bones :)
I think everyone wants to find some excuse, some reason to pin it on, some way to be able to neatly file this away in the "finished" file.
The real point is that culture is nothing more than mutually agreed-upon values and customs.
There will be no change until the root values of the culture are examined and refined, changed if necessary.
To blame video games and movies is a cop-out. Those things are manifestations of something much bigger, much deeper. The violence that is present in US culture is fruit of the poisoned tree.
I say this knowing the culture I chose is not perfect, either. It has flaws.. some of them serious. I know there are people who are examining those things within our community.. my chosen community. And I stand by them, no matter how hard it is.
That's all I want to see here as well. People must be willing to examine it at the root, pull it out at the root, instead of finding faux "reasons" that put people more simply at ease.
Peace,
~Chani
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Chani, as always, I agree with the concept that this is a root issue, and that's the part that needs to be addressed. But that's not a quick and easy soundbite, eh. Nor is it an easily platformable concept.
Listen, as far as the topic goes (forgiveness and justice) it is wide open. You write what you want, how you want on the topic. I don't really mean the two as "versus."
I really do look forward to what you have to say.
"I'm willing to explore it as long as I can come up with something reasonably intelligent to say. :) " As if I've ever seen anything less than interesting and thought-provoking on your blog.
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Mary-Lue, yes, time. Take the time. I hope for the same.
And I can't wait to see what you have to say on this topic. I admit to a bit of glee turning the concepts back around to you. As I answered, after I did rather, I wondered how you would answer. Whatever it was, I knew it would be thoughtful and interesting.
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Gwen, I can't wait to read your post about justice and forgiveness.
You know, we are all so much more fragile (and so much stronger) than we really admit. But yes, I agree, there is a healthy level of denial necessary here.
Yes, I completely got that you were being sarcastic. :)
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Kim, thanks. And I can count on you, right? :)
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Bones, I will check out the Slate article, and your friend's Web site/organization. Thanks for the referrals.
I agree about what makes sense here. Everybody has his/her platform.
I keep thinking about Peggy's post about the Harvard abstinence group that protested the rape education session because they hadn't included abstinence on the rape education curriculum.
It's too easy to get such tunnel-vision that you totally miss the point and sound like a jackass.
Or defend the "right to bear arms" when a simple statement of grief and sorrow will do.
Thanks for doing all that research and boiling it down and sharing it. That's interesting to know.
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Cece, fantastic! I'm so glad you are joining in. I can't wait to read your piece.
You know, I totally get that: want to cry, do I have the right, how can I make this mine, it's really someone else's.
But I do believe a thing like this is in some way all of ours, so your feelings are totally normal and okay IMO (if I'm the end-all be-all answer to everything, LOL).
My youngest brother is at college, and yes, I can understand that feeling, that rug yanked out from under you feeling, the fear, the worry, the feeling of vulnerability.
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Chani, I agree, We all want some quick and easy place/person to blame, so we can "fix" that, and prevent it from happening to us. Sigh. Sad sigh. Sadder sigh.
I have often wondered why we are so violent here. I don't understand it per se, but I can better grasp it in some cultures that are so violent.
Maybe we can. Maybe we can examine the root and make a change. Wasn't it Gandhi who said to never underestimate the diffrence one person can make?
Julie, it starts this simply. I believe that. All of us gathering here in your little comment forum, sharing ideas, examining, questioning, offering alternatives.
Ghandi was right .. and wrong. We may not be able to make much of a difference as individuals but as a community, as diverse as we are, even in this comments forum, can change minds. If we can change minds, we can change hearts.
In some ways, I feel like I have forfeited my right to make too many comments about US culture since I've blatantly chosen another. Yet.. in another way.. there's a lot of value in dialogue.. and in exchanging ideas.
I would start with this: Acceptance. Acceptance is a form of approval. As long as people look at the violence surrounding us, all over the world, and don't take a stand against it, including making the changes in our own lives, perpetuate it. We have to be willing to be the oddball, to be the one who structures our lives and our families differently, the ones who refuse to buy into dominant US culture, the ones who begin to live the things we claim to believe.
That means recognizing violence in all its forms. Ugly ideas. Violent thoughts and actions. Negative stereotyping... all of it.
Feels overwhelming, doesn't it? :)
Peace,
~Chani