When Reasons Can?t be Found
Scripture passage: Romans 8:37-39
by the Rev. Dr. Gay Lee Einstein
April 22nd, 2007
I think that all of us this week have felt like we have been living inside a Wizard of Oz storybook. Midweek it occurred to me, anyway, that that is a good way to describe what we have been going through. We?ve experienced near tornado winds, making life difficult, if not downright chaotic. For some of us, it?s been no electric power, no drinking, or dishwashing or shower water, no internet; Some of us have had roofs ripped off our houses, and major trees razed by violent, high power wind storms. But as we know the chaos associated with those winds became a mere backdrop for a much greater chaos?the shootings at Virginia Tech. Maybe like me, you?ve felt like Dorothy, sitting in your house as it is hurled through the skies. For a full week now you?ve been sitting on your bed and watching out your bedroom window as witches and other demons cycle past, and wondering when the wind dies down and the action is over in Blacksburg, where on this earth, or in this universe, you and our national community are going to land.
My daughter, Paige, is a student at Tech. Pity her. Pity her because she has the misfortune of being the youngest child of an overprotective mom. Pediatricians have probably documented that there is an inverse ratio between birth order and a mother?s overprotectiveness. In the 26th chapter of Luke we read that after Jesus? death, the disciple Thomas needed to touch the wounds in Jesus? hands and side before he could believe in Christ?s resurrection. Just so, the overprotective mom you see before you, needed to see her daughter, count the hairs on her head and witness for herself any wounds to her precious spirit and her most beautiful mind. After five phone calls her way, I finally was able to wheedle an invitation out of her, ?Mom, why don?t you just come to the Tuesday night campus vigil?? God is definitely good.
Besides wanting to count hairs, I think, too, I needed to find God at Virginia Tech. At least that?s what my brother suggested. He said, ?You went as much for yourself as you did for Paige.? That is true. It was a kind of pilgrimage to what has become a holy site, of sorts?this school where so many young people and their professors gave up the ghost for no reason that we can yet fathom.
My daughter knows violence. Probably all youth today know violence. Paige grew up in Northern Virginia. Her high school was only a parking lot away from the CIA. When 9/11 happened, there was a strong suspicion that that fifth plane was headed her way. Her school was locked down for six hours while she and her classmates watched the collapse of the towers on an overhead TV screen?over and over and over again. Then there were the DC snipers. Remember them? Two of the snipers? victims had been shot at gas stations in the general DC area, which includes Northern Virginia. Thinking that a moving target is somewhat harder to hit than a stationary one, my daughter and her friends invented ?the gas station boogie.? It goes something like this. (little dance)
Like 9/11 and the sniper shootings, after the incident at Virginia Tech we are all searching for reasons. After I arrived in Blacksburg, and before the vigil, Paige and I hit a restaurant for dinner. That?s where we explored?reasons. Paige wanted to talk about guns. Did I know that there had been a gun show in Roanoke that past weekend? Roanoke is a short 15 minute drive from Blacksburg. A college friend had picked up a pistol there. Buying a gun at a gun show is as easy as, well, as easy as grabbing lunch at a Taco Bell, she said, in so many words. No background check. No waiting period. ?And,? she added, ?My roommate packs a pistol.? Well not exactly packs a pistol. She keeps a handgun in her car?s glove compartment. That?s definitely not the thing an overprotective mom wants to hear. But guns, Paige and I decided, is only a symptom and of what, we weren?t sure. Our violent society, perhaps? An inappropriate fascination with weapons? Insidious, and constant fear? We weren?t sure.
Our conversation strayed from guns to Blacksburg happenings. She wanted me to know about ?Girls gone Wild,? a pornographic act which intended to star Virginia Tech women. The act is sponsored by a porn video company run by entrepreneur Joe Francis. The act and filming had been scheduled to appear at Oge Chis, a local club in downtown Blacksburg on April 20th. Paige told me that the show had been cancelled. Probably not good to have that kind of thing going on in Blacksburg three days after the shooting. One campus predator at a time, please!
?Is this why this horrible thing happened?? we wondered. Was it due to the decadence of a society that would allow something like ?Girls Gone Wild?? Once again, we had no answers, just the question.
Our conversation turned to the shooter who had just that evening been identified as Seung-Hui Cho.. Paige didn?t know him, but my daughter said, ?Honestly, Mom, he?s got the kind of face that blends in. He could have been in one of my survey classes, and I wouldn?t have noticed him.? We talked about the fact that Cho had been an angry loner. Paige and I didn?t talk about Hell, but as we sat in the restaurant and played with our ice tea straws, I silently thought about hell.
I taught a high school church school class once, when the topic had been hell. I told the class that my personal definition of sin is temporary alienation from God. Hell, then, I told them, to my thinking anyway, is permanent alienation from God. I remember that class so well because one of the students was adamantly opposed to my theology. Hell has GOT to be about fire and gnashing of teeth and eternal pain and suffering; otherwise it?s just not Hell. In the student?s view, alienation from God is not punishment enough. As I thought about the loner Cho, his alienation from his classmates, and most especially what must have been his alienation from God, I considered that Cho?s life, even without physical pain, must have been a living hell. The sad thing was that God was there for Cho, but for some reason Cho could not find God. What stood in the way? Depression for sure. A toxic society? Maybe. I considered these things while Paige and I continued to sit in silence and wait for our food to arrive.
Paul says in Romans, ?I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, not any powers, neither height, nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.? NOTHING is able to separate us from the love of God. That is true, but sometimes maybe we forget that; and maybe some of us have never ever heard that, or at least never ever learned that. Cho could not have learned that, or he wouldn?t have done what he did.
After dinner Paige and I walked to Norris Hall. It had been cordoned off with yellow tape, but we stood on the sidewalk in front of the building and noted the bloodstains under our feet. Then, we ambled on to the drill field for the vigil. The students stood in clusters. You could tell the ones who had known and loved a downed student. They clung a little closer to one another, exchanged hugs and cried. Certainly God was in this community. Whereever there is love, there is God, after all.
The candles for the vigil had been donated; Paige?s and my candles were compliments of the Roanoke Emergency Medical Services. They were maroon and they had little paper skirts around them to catch wax drips. The service was short. As dusk descended, the color guard marched onto the field to drum beats. Paige and I were two people among thousands of students, administrators, professors and parents. The vice president of student affairs spoke very briefly. She said ?The university will recover and survive with prayers.? Then there was the lighting of the candles, a call for a moment of silence and an invitation to stay as long as we wished.
That was not enough for me. I didn?t expect anyone to use the J word, but certainly the G word would have been acceptable and appropriate at this gathering, don?t you think? There was a mother standing beside me. I know that she was a mother, because she was being super attentive to a college boy, who could not have been other than her Hokie son. Evidently she needed to hear the G word, too. She whispered, ?God bless us all,? to which I added my own ?Amen.? After the moment of silence, she whispered yet again, ?Does anyone want to say the Lord?s prayer?? ?Of course,? I said, and so, with her right arm now linked with my left arm, we began reciting the Lord?s prayer. By the time we finished, perhaps several thousand voices, had joined ours. Then from the other end of the field, people began humming Amazing Grace. Cheers followed. Football cheers. ?Go Hokies!? My new found Christian friend was the first of our little group to leave. We exchanged hugs as she turned to squeeze her way through the crowd. That hug was for us the peace of Christ. Yes, God was here among us on Virginia Tech?s drill field.
Back at Paige?s apartment we talked about the need for religion in her life. THIS time I believe she actually listened. I suggested she take in a service at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church. I told her, ? I understand the preacher is fantastic, AND he?s not a fundy.? Her roommate said she?d like to go too. ?I?m a Lutheran,? she said, ?but Presbyterian is ok.? Then I gave my daughter a long and crushing parting hug.
I don?t have any words of wisdom for you today. All I know is, I want my children to be safe. I want your children to be safe. I want ALL children to be safe. Unfortunately I can?t and you can?t protect them from crazy men with guns. We can?t protect them from illness, we can?t protect them from car wrecks and all the other tragedies that befall children.
We can, though, keep them from experiencing a living Hell. The living Hell that was Cho?s existence. We can tell them over and over again that they are loved. We can remind them that the world is still basically good and that no matter what befalls them, they are precious in our sight and in God?s sight; we can teach them that, ?Nothing in this world can separate you from the love of God.? Finally, we can encourage them to develop a life of faith, so that they are reminded now and again of that important fact. It?s not enough maybe. But we have to make it enough. That is the truth. Believe it. Amen
