Things Fall Apart

I wrote this journal entry last year, the day after the Virginia Tech shootings.  That shooting really stirred me.  I remember sitting on my couch at home with Lindsey, watching this sermon called "Rhythm" that my friend Caleb had lent me because he thought it resonated with my beliefs.  After it was over, I just started sobbing.  Lindsey put her arms around my shaking shoulders and told me she was worried about me and asked me why I was so sad.   I told her that never in my entire life, never until the day before, had I ever thought to myself "I don't want to have kids."  But now it was all I could think.  I don't want to bring kids into this sick world.  The news of the shooting followed some sad things that were happening at the school I interned at, watching my beloved students experience things no one, and especially no one that young, should go through.  Anyway, I don't still feel that way (re having kids) although I do still think the world is terribly ill (who can argue that?).  But now I feel even more of a charge to raise little spiritual soldiers who will fight to make this world better.  Who will fight with virtue, and with uprightness, with practical goals, and with noble hearts to transform this world.  Of course, I myself need to work on establishing that soldierness in myself.

In any event, here was the piece I wrote in April 2007, which sadly, is more appropriate than ever in light of the new shootings in the United States.  The relentless violence taking over our sacred institutions. 

"Things Fall Apart"

Virginia Tech Shooting.  April 16, 2007.  What a sad, sad day for the world.  What a sad, sad day.

They say he was looking for his girlfriend.  Did he find her in the 32 dead, I wonder?  What he did was horrifying and absolutely unforgivable...without a doubt.  But what led him to it?  What gnawed at him late at night when he closed his eyes?  Or when he couldn't sleep?  When loneliness felt so permanent another day was too hard to get through?  When pain was so immense it could not be borne alone?

My professor told us this shooting might have implications for our university.  For every university.  Will security get tighter?  Will metal detectors become a permanent fixture at our institutions of higher learning?  These things, all these things that we do...they just cushion the fall.  We keep lining up the mattresses to cushion the fall, but when will we learn to stop jumping?

As a nation, as a world, when will we learn to address the root causes rather than the symptoms?

The time for change has come; the time for change is now.  We're all suffocating because it's too hot outside to exhale normally.  We're all freezing inside because it's too cold to fully inhale.  We're all slipping because the roads are icy.  But who cares if pockets of the ocean are now inhospitable to life because of pollution?  Who cares if the planet is reduced to two seasons: extreme winter and extreme summer?  I won't look as cool in a Prius as I will in a Hummer, so who the heck cares.

We've become such a world of pleasure-pursuit that we've forgotten all about long-term happiness.  About the value of self-restraint. Why shouldn't I indulge in everything I want?  Why shouldn't I have sex with the next hot guy who asks me out on a date?  How does self-restraint make me feel good RIGHT NOW?

The other night this guy went on a whole spiel about how human being weren't made for monogamy.  How it's just "not in our makeup."

Right.  Because it's so good for society when men and women infect each other with disease.  It's so good for us as a planet when families have no value and children don't even know who to call mom or dad.  It's great when 14-year old kids have to decide whether or not to abort their babies.  It's so awesome and progressive when we all get to fool around and mess around and never take responsibility for ourselves, thus leaving our successors with no stability.  A world full of houses and no homes.  But screw it, this feels great, right?

The time for change has come, and the time for change is now.

I am waiting for the spiritual spring to fully blossom.  If ruin is upon us, then so is rebirth.  The waiting is hard, though.  When things fall apart, it's hard.