We Are Virginia Tech

I watched Virginia Tech English Professor Nikki Giovanni give a powerful and emotional conclusion to the memorial gathering on the Virginia Tech campus last week. It was a well crafted and well delivered conclusion to a sad day, a day of mourning. In it she made mention of the fact that "we did nothing to deserve this tragedy". It is a powerful statement and one that each of us should ponder.

As I have counseled people over the years who have been hit with tragedies and as I have faced tragedies (albeit considerably less powerful than the Virginia Tech shootings) I have noticed that one of the reactions common to all is that of blame. We often wonder what we could have done to prevent the problem. One of my brothers felt great guilt at the sudden death of my father from a heart attack because he felt we should have "forced" my Dad to have more drastic procedures that might have saved his life. He expressed that basic human fantasy we all share - a fantasy that says we should divine the future because we have hindsight. We can no more predict and understand the implications of natural disasters or man made tragedies than we can predict which case holds the million dollars on "Deal or No Deal" before the numbers are revealed.

One of the old hymns we have sung in the Church of God says, "The future lies unseen ahead, it holds I know not what. But still I know I need not dread, for Jesus faileth not." The Apostle Paul in talking about eternity says, "We see through a glass darkly". Both of these sentiments agree that we are no good at soothsaying. We are terrible at predicting the future, especially future tragedies that we could prevent.

Rather than live in a sea of guilt maybe we should learn to live each day with greater joy. I got up and my back hurt today. So what? Should that ruin my day? Life if too precious to waste it on either foolish guilt or bad moods. Live today as though you have no promise of tomorrow. Come to think of it, you don't have a promise of tomorrow. Makes how you live today seem more important, huh? Good. Live life. Remember, we are Virginia Tech.