Raksha Vasutevha, right, a 5th year architecture student at Virginia Tech, joins friends in a candlelight vigil for fallen students in downtown Blacksburg Monday night.
The mourning begins at Virginia Tech. The above photo is from CNN. As I sit here trying to think of something to say, the old hymn of my childhood runs through my mind:
O what peace we often forfeit,
O what needless pain we bear.
Just because we do not carry
Ev'rything to God in prayer.
O what needless pain we bear.
Just because we do not carry
Ev'rything to God in prayer.
How much pain do we bear alone? How much pain do our children carry? I know college students are adults, but as the father of two college students, they are, to me, grown children. How much peace do we all forfeit when we keep our pain inside ourselves?
I usually think of that hymn as a hymn of personal prayer. It is that. Yet, today, I think of it differently. What needless pain we bear when we go it alone. What needless pain the gunman must have been bearing. From needless pain to needless violence--and now to pain again. Let none of us bear this alone. We are to one another, the response to prayer.
Yet prayer divorced from action comes off as hypocritical. George, after mouthing a few pious platitudes, has already made it clear this won't affect his stance on allowing people in this country to buy guns with about the same level of restriction as kids buying candy.
ReplyDeleteThe NRA is lining too many pockets. This isn't exactly the first senseless massacre in the US from someone apparently participating in our constitutionally required "well regulated militia" to provide for the "security of the state."
Thanks, Paul.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree more.
Well, once we outlaw guns only the kooks and criminals will have them. Won't that make you sleep better at night?
ReplyDelete