Reflections on Tragedy, I

Why do we never get an answer
When we’re knocking at the door?
With a thousand million questions
About hate and death and war. “Questions” The Moody Blues

Virginia Tech. After this week none of us will hear the name of that university again without thinking to the terrible tragedy that occurred there. Thirty-three dead, including the man who took the other thirty-two lives. The American Heritage Dictionary defines tragedy as “a disastrous event, especially one involving distressing loss or injury to life.” Images from the news media this week could illustrate the definition. Unfortunately, human history could provide all too many illustrations.

In the face of tragedy, we all ask, “why?” The questions are inevitable, and in many cases unanswerable. There are limits to human knowing. What makes a young man who has struggled with mental illness decide to purchase hand guns, take pictures of himself with them, make videos with them, send these off to a major new network in between shooting people? What makes him do that instead of going to a campus counselor and admitting he is struggling with murderous thoughts?

There are limits to human knowing, but one thing I know, at least for me, is that religious language that asserts that God somehow allowed this tragedy to happen for reasons only God knows, that language makes little sense. As a person of faith, I believe in God. As a person of Christian faith, the God I believe in is known in Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ. The God I know in Jesus Christ does not seem to be a God who would stand by and watch a mentally ill man go on a shooting and killing rampage. There is genuine freedom in the world and for human beings, and that means that God does not simply intervene to contradict human action or the forces of nature.

I believe God was there at Virginia Tech last Monday morning, not allowing tragedy to occur, but as that still, small voice somewhere in the confused mind of Seung-Hui Cho urging him to get help, to cease moving forward with his demented plan to kill. It was a voice he chose to ignore. And God was there at Virginia Tech last Monday morning in agony and weeping with victims and their families, giving courage to a man like Professor Librescu – Romanian Holocaust survivor who blocked the door to his classroom so the gunman could not enter, losing his life in the process. God was at Virginia Tech last Monday morning, bruised and broken-hearted. I intend to affirm this in my Sunday sermon.

My theological reflection has also taken me in another direction. In The Gospel of John, chapter 21, Jesus asks his disciple, Peter, “Do you love me?” He asks three times and each time Peter says, “Yes, you know that I do.” And with each of Peter’s responses, Jesus tells him to care for people (“feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep”). This has gotten me to think that perhaps God’s purpose in the world is not to form people who will more consistently speak God’s name. Perhaps God’s purpose in the world is to form caring, compassionate people who speak God’s name. I believe traditional spiritual disciplines like prayer, Scripture reading and worship are important. I think I could make a case that they are essential for forming a caring and compassionate heart and mind, but in the end what matters most is the formation of that caring and compassionate soul.

If we are able to be more caring and compassionate people, and form more caring and compassionate communities, we might avert some tragedy. Who can say what might have prevented this past week’s tragedy. That question will remain more or less unanswered. Communities of care and compassion can only help, and when tragedy does strike, as unfortunately it will again, caring and compassionate people and communities are just what we need to help us through.

With Faith and With Feathers,

David

A Couple of Quotes for the Week

Christianity is first and foremost about being kind.
Theologian Robert Neville, Symbols of Jesus

We must love one another or die.
W.H. Auden, “September 1, 1939” (Auden ended up changing this line in his poem, but I rather like it as it was first written)