washing dishes in a fractured world

So, I have these great ideas for blogs while I wash dishes. I really need to reconfigure the kitchen so I can look out the window while I wash...oh well. By the time I usually get to blogging, though, the ideas are either past, or have jammed themselves inside my head like too many staples in a malfunctioning electric stapler. We'll take a stab at sorting some out though.

I was wanting to reflect on the Virginia Tech shootings. I could rail about the media, and its treatment of the situation; about how the administration is getting unfair heat about the whole 2 hour lapse; I could go on ad naseum about the gun laws (bet that would up my comment count); or reflect on the different ways people respond to these horrible incidents. I am saddened to be sure. Virginia Tech is closely associated with George's family- his grandfather was the first dean of humanities and at different times chair of the English dept. He brought Shakespeare and co. to a Polytechnical school- his daughter became a college professor, as did his grandson. There is a building at Tech named for him. George's mom and his uncles/aunt graduated from Blacksburg High- at least one uncle got a degree there. Both his grandparents are buried in Blackburg, and I've often thought it was one of the neatest mountain college towns I'd ever seen. The idea of it now being associated in most people's minds with a bloodbath is as saddening to me as the events themselves.

One particular moment in the reporting of the incidents and aftermath stands out to me. A reporter was on the campus, reporting live about memorial services and makeshift shrines. In the background someone can be heard yelling on a loudspeaker. Thinking perhaps another incident was underway, the anchor in the studio asks the reporter what is happening- what announcements are being made or broadcast. The reporter quite deftly answers the question by saying that "an evangelist has set up across the quad from us here and is speaking into a megaphone, and that is the source of the noise." Bullhorn guy has shown up in Blacksburg. He probably would consider it a great success that he intruded on the major news carrier's live feed. This was the news outlet that was advertising Deepak Chopra's advice for the grieving, after all (or maybe it was that Deepak was going to be there?). Bullhorn guy has decided that with all this national attention, souls need saving in Blacksburg. Maybe this brush with mortality will scare more people into his brand of Jesus fearing religion. Maybe he thinks this shooter's manifesto is somewhat right in its denunciation of charlatans and rich kids- of hedonists and loose women- perhaps this is a tool of God to get everyone's attention- or better yet, a judgement on the lifestyles of those evil college students. For people who are so scared of going to hell and the being forever subject to the devil, I would think they would be better acquainted with said Evil One and the marks of his work in our world. (Please don't hear me say I think the Devil possessed this boy and made him shoot 60 people- he had some choices- but I do think he was imbued with all the characteristics of one who is tormented by mental illness and has given in to the evil impulses we all have felt as fallen creatures of an earthly existence). I do believe Evil exists, and its purpose is always counter to that of God's and that it was in full force on the campus of Virginia Tech Monday morning. The greater question now becomes how should we respond? Putting aside all the what-ifs and might have beens, where do we go now? I guess I shouldn't be so hard on bullhorn guy since he actually went to the campus to share what he thinks is God's message. But I just finished listening to a sermon about how we, as Christians, we are the message- Jesus was the Logos- the WORD of God- and as his body, his incarnation to the broken world- we are the message- how we love, care and respond- that is what will speak to this situation. If we ask "where is God?" He most often answers by asking "where are you?" (stolen from "New Exodus" sermon series- Rob Bell and Don Golden, June 11, 2006)

Where are we indeed.