April 16, 2007: A Date that will Live in Infamy
Hm...what to post? Uniform changeover has occurred, so we're now in short-sleeves and whites again. Giant pain in the ass, the white uniforms...impossible to keep clean. And the weather isn't exactly what I'd call "seasonable." Oh well; maybe it means this summer won't be as ridiculously hot and humid as usual. Hopefully we'll be seeing some green out in Wyoming in June; snowshoes are fun, but I'd just as soon not spend a whole month on them if possible.
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By now I'm sure everyone's heard about the massacre at VA Tech. Naturally, all thoughts and prayers are directed towards Blacksburg, at the families of those killed, those wounded, and those who were wounded in some way other than physically. The Brigade played "Taps" at noon formation today, but I wasn't there to see it. I was in choir practice--I've never had "He's got the Whole World In His Hands" get to me like that. And at the end of practice, when our choir director led off a prayer, then kicked in with "Amazing Grace"...forget it. I completely lost it. I couldn't sing note one, try as I might. All I could do was sit down up in the chancel and try not to make a huge mess of myself or the chancel itself.
It's things like this that, horrible as it may sound, bring people closer together. It's sad that we ocasionally need events like this to realize that there are things worth loving in this world; that we have to see someone else suffering to realize what we've got right in front of us every day. People are so quick to point the finger of blame at others that they don't take the time to step back and realize how lucky they are.
What it's made me reazlie is that friendship is precious. As a result, I'm trying to reconnect with as many people who've touched my life in the past--regardless of how large or small the impact. As much as I hate to play the "what if?" game, "what if" one of the victims had been someone I knew? Coming from Fairfax County, I know dozens of people there, since Tech is such a popular school for that area. "What if" someone I was on good terms with had been slain, and I hadn't taken the time to say "thank you" for weeks, months, or even years?
"What if?"
It's just so tragic that thirty-two lives have been taken in such a cruel fashion. What had taken years to put together was snuffed out in a moment of terror and pain. When I heard the account of the 70-something professor blocking the door with his body so his students could escape, I lost it again.
I almost wish the shooter had been taken alive (I'm not counting him among the lives "lost" or "taken"; to do so would be disrespectful to the victims). As much as people say he was borderline sociopathic, I wish he'd gotten the chance to see just the amount of suffering he had caused, if only to imprint on him the magnitude of his actions...just before he was hanged, or even crucified. Does it make me a bad person to wish such a fate on another human being? Maybe, but he doesn't strike me as particularly human at the moment, and right now I'm in a rather Old Testament sort of mood.
**********
By now I'm sure everyone's heard about the massacre at VA Tech. Naturally, all thoughts and prayers are directed towards Blacksburg, at the families of those killed, those wounded, and those who were wounded in some way other than physically. The Brigade played "Taps" at noon formation today, but I wasn't there to see it. I was in choir practice--I've never had "He's got the Whole World In His Hands" get to me like that. And at the end of practice, when our choir director led off a prayer, then kicked in with "Amazing Grace"...forget it. I completely lost it. I couldn't sing note one, try as I might. All I could do was sit down up in the chancel and try not to make a huge mess of myself or the chancel itself.
It's things like this that, horrible as it may sound, bring people closer together. It's sad that we ocasionally need events like this to realize that there are things worth loving in this world; that we have to see someone else suffering to realize what we've got right in front of us every day. People are so quick to point the finger of blame at others that they don't take the time to step back and realize how lucky they are.
What it's made me reazlie is that friendship is precious. As a result, I'm trying to reconnect with as many people who've touched my life in the past--regardless of how large or small the impact. As much as I hate to play the "what if?" game, "what if" one of the victims had been someone I knew? Coming from Fairfax County, I know dozens of people there, since Tech is such a popular school for that area. "What if" someone I was on good terms with had been slain, and I hadn't taken the time to say "thank you" for weeks, months, or even years?
"What if?"
It's just so tragic that thirty-two lives have been taken in such a cruel fashion. What had taken years to put together was snuffed out in a moment of terror and pain. When I heard the account of the 70-something professor blocking the door with his body so his students could escape, I lost it again.
I almost wish the shooter had been taken alive (I'm not counting him among the lives "lost" or "taken"; to do so would be disrespectful to the victims). As much as people say he was borderline sociopathic, I wish he'd gotten the chance to see just the amount of suffering he had caused, if only to imprint on him the magnitude of his actions...just before he was hanged, or even crucified. Does it make me a bad person to wish such a fate on another human being? Maybe, but he doesn't strike me as particularly human at the moment, and right now I'm in a rather Old Testament sort of mood.