Today was an interesting study in contrasts. It was a Monday kind of start to the the day at work; trying to get things done, having to wait on others before the things could get done… I keep a web browser open while I work; glancing at it throughout the day to see what is going on in the world, what’s happening "out there." I remember glancing at the first blurb about a shooting on a college campus in Virginia. I thought to myself, "not again", but the phone rang and I went back to work. It just mentioned a shooting, no fatalities; nothing else other than it was a developing story. I figured I would go back to it when I had a moment. I checked back a little later and there was one fatality. I said a quick prayer for the situation and then the phone rang and I went back to work, again. Again, I figured I would read the story in a little bit, when I had a little more time.
I finally went back to the story and the one fatality had become 20! Bewildered, I read what there was of the story, but it was still developing. There really wasn’t a whole lot of information. I went back to my work, answering phones, typing up some minutes, checking to see if the spreadsheet I was waiting for was done. Shortly after lunch, I checked the story again and read the breaking news banner, 31 dead! I literally gasped. I sat there stunned. My heart began to ache for the family and friends involved. I found myself reading and re-reading the article. It was still a developing story and sketchy. I checked again and the death toll had risen to 33, the gunman being one. It made no sense. It hurt to read, but I had to read, hoping in the reading to make sense, to understand, but it didn’t make sense, there was no understanding.
Since it was Monday, I left work early to get to church and set up for the evening’s Perspectives class. I prayed for the people back east as I drove.
Tonight’s topic was on Christian Community Development. The speaker shared his experiences in Latin America working with the Wounaan people. He shared on language development and literacy, on social action and evangelism and the effort to move a people, to move us toward God’s intention. He talked of ethnomusiciology and he shared some fascinating examples of music styles from around the world. He spoke of the work to contextualize worship music to allow it to reflect the culture’s heart music, to allow the culture to worship God with its own sounds and rhythms. After he shared and spoke to our hearts, we gathered to pray for one who was leaving us to go to Africa to serve for several months. This young man was going and doing that which we had been studying in this class! It was a blessed evening of prayer and fellowship and sharing our hearts with one another. It was a respite from the day. I arrived at church with an aching heart and left church with a song in my heart, literally, as we had heard such a variety of distinct sounds and styles of "music."
My daughter called while I was in class, so I returned her call when I arrived home. We talked about a few minor things and then she asked me if I had been following the school shooting. I started, realizing I had managed to forget what had happened while I was at church. I asked if the death toll had risen from the last number I had read, and I held my breath, waiting for the answer. It hadn’t. I was able to breathe, but was aching all over again. We talked about the insanity of the situation and that’s all I could think to call it, insane. I grieved for the parents who had watched their children go away to college, never thinking something so horrible would occur. I wondered whether those who had died were prepared for their eternity. It was another pain-filled thought.
And so I am left now to write about a day of contrasts, great emotional swings, desperately seeking some equilibrium, some balance, and the song that comes to mind is a song that I’ve heard on different shows of late. It’s titled "Hallelujah" and is written by Leonard Cohen. It has been sung by various artists. It speaks of love grown cold, lost faith even, and disillusionment. There’s a lot of religious symbolism in the song, but I don’t think the writer was intending for it to be inspirational in tone. It’s a lament, actually. But in the hallelujah "chorus" I manage to find a desperate hope, a desperate longing… a longing for something larger than all of this to help me make sense of the senselessness. And that’s where I find God. Or rather, He finds me, broken and desperate. And I can finally cry… tears of grief… for the moms… and tears of… thanksgiving… for the young man that is going away from us… to a place no safer than that school… but God has called him. And we will pray for him. And with him and the students at Virginia Tech in mind, I will say a broken hallelujah.
All Things Elda 