No one deserves a tragedy

I realize it has been a ridiculously long time since my last blog post. I am due for an update and hope to do that soon. However, this entry I want to reflect a bit and leave an update for another time.
The events of the past week in Blacksburg, VA at Virginia Tech have really gripped my soul as I imagine they have for most of the U.S. It's often difficult for me, because I live in such a completely different world, to relate and fully understand the tragedy the community is going through as I feel so far removed from it all. This contretemps is not the first to strike American schools, and unfortunately will not be the last. I remember when I began studying at my current university. The process of entering campus requires extra time. It's become routine after two years, so I no longer mind showing my student ID card and having my bags checked at security and passing through a metal detector. I know which items not to carry in my pockets and which shoes will inevitably cause the alarm to sound. As this process has become habit, it no longer phases me. It's not really an inconvenience any longer; and this past week, I actually found the process to be a blessing.
I don't worry about security at school, or in the dorms where I live, because I pass by security guards at both points. Granted, we have all found ways to bypass these security measures, mostly out of laziness... but nonetheless, I know they are there for my protection. But I live in the Middle East...that region of the world that people shudder from when its uttered. I understand, the ME gets a bad rap... but seriously, is it any worse than anywhere else? Maybe I just feel safe because the country I'm in is constantly being watched, so random gunmen don't take their anger and damaged souls out on the innocent.
It seems so surreal that this misfortune has happened in the U.S., that maybe now school campuses everywhere should have security like mine does. Really no one is immune, as much as we Americans would often like to believe we are. But at the end of the day, security doesn't really phase me any more. As many of the students have found here, the security is often just for looks, there are ways to bypass it. It's a false sense of security...
So how does this fit into other situations? For the future of the students at VA Tech? I'm not really sure. Will they ever feel "safe" again? Are metal detectors and security guards with guns really the solution? Was there really a "right" way to prevent this catastrophe?

I read an article recently by Jim Wallace from Sojourners Magazine. In his article Jim quoted a speech given by Nikki Giovanni, a professor and poet. She said in a convocation given Tuesday at the university,
"We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning. ... We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy."
On the very same day, I sat in class and had a professor make an off joke about the situation in VA. Another student called him on it and said that he was inappropriate and out of line. The professor then posed the question, "Why exactly is it that these school shootings occur all the time in the US?...(he himself not being and American). What's with all of these kids getting guns and shooting people?"
To which I reply, but what about the kids with guns in Sudan, and in the Congo, Liberia, and frankly countries all around the world, not just in Africa? People are dying everywhere from guns, but is that really the problem? It just happens that genocides and robberies on the streets, murders of all sorts don't make the news, but this stuff does. It's odd that this statement would come from someone living in Jerusalem. I suppose I could ask, well why do people get on buses here and blow themselves up? Why do I have to be skiddish when I ride buses? Why is there a wall separating families and people from jobs? There is tragedy in all of our societies. Sin seems to reach beyond the personal, in to the social into systemic sins that plague our world. These are tragedies. And as Professor Giovanni said so beautifully, "no one deserves a tragedy."
So my heart goes out to the young boy, who was so angry and lost, so depleted of love, compassion, a community, friends, that this devastation was the outcome. I don't think this is really a time for blame on any one individual...not on parents, not on teachers, not on the boy himself. It's a time for mourning. But it's also a time for reflection. How as a society, as religious, non-religious, as political, non-political, as educators, as individuals, do we prevent such a tragedy in the future?
I won't pretend to have any answers, but writing provokes me to ponder these same questions in search of a solution, or at least is a prompting down a path which may end in a solution. I really hate to be depressing, but sometimes our tragic world calls for times of reflection, times when we ask ourselves how we as inhabitants of this earth are either contributing to the problems, or how we are part of the cause seeking a cure. Blessings my friends, and I pray we will all find ourselves and the side of the cause, daily bringing about heaven on this earth.