Perspective
First let me make it clear that my thoughts and prayers have been, and will continue to be, extended on behalf of the victims and families of the individuals involvd in the Virginia Tech. incident. The whole thing is awful.
Having said that. I am reminded of my post a few months ago regarding 9-11 (you can read it here.)
Notice that the mass-murder in Virginia took up the entirety of several news cycles whereas the 180 Iraqis who were killed earlier this week (I believe the bloodiest day in over a year, but I’m not sure) barely made mention on NPR (and didn’t on any of the TV I saw.)
Why does this bother me? Well, for several reasons. First, of course, is the subtle belief that American lives are worth more than others. I understand that VT is closer than Iraq and so it’s natural that we’d pay more attention to it, but still…
More than that though, it bothers me because the entire country was taken hostage by one mentally-ill college student. Again, I mean absolutely no disrespect. The problem is, I worry that people are being forced to engage too much. The scriptures tell us to morn with one another (just as we are to celebrate with one another) but I don’t think we’re capable of mourning (or celebrating) with everyone in the country every time something bad (or good) takes place. It’s too much.
When we’re forced to deal with the good and bad in our own lives and those in our immediate community after pouring everything we have out on situations that we honestly have little or no connection with, we don’t have the energy or the ability to do so.
Perhaps one of the reasons the church has trouble being the community that the body of Christ ought is that we spend so much of our energy being pseudo-church in too many situations that we don’t have anything left to be real church.
So, Sunday we’ll pray for Virginia. Duh! Of course we’ll pray for them. The situation was horrible; the events terrifying; the deaths inexcusable. But we’ll also pray for the hundreds (and thousands) of people beset by genocide around the world, killed and threatened by war, and tormented by famine. We will not pretend that the deaths of Americans are somehow “worse” than the deaths of others and we’ll try to keep some perspective.
Grace and Peace,
`tim
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