A Fascination with Tragedy

On Monday of this week (4/16/07) the world changed for everyone of us. For the 33 people who died on the Virginia Tech University campus, it changed irrevocably. For their friends and families, it changed tragically and deeply. For the University Community, it changed the way college will happen there for a long time. For those who responded to the events on campus, there will be an extensive time of Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) debriefing to help them handle what they lived through. For the rest of us across this country, the change will be more shortlived and more easily dealt with emotionally and factually, but we will still always remember that day, just as we remember the 9/11 attacks.

Like the media, we will discuss and re-discuss each moment of the events, and we will question the decisions made by everyone involved and try and find fault or blame somewhere, because our minds cannot or will not accept that these events could have happened without someone being at fault--and it certainly wasn't us. None of the professors or students should have died, and the killer should have been found out and been in treatment long ago. It's just not right that it could have happened without someone to blame.

But let me suggest that while there may have been mistakes on an individual level or perhaps on an institutional level that might possibly have prevented this from happening, the primary fault lies with all of us--our culture--our growing humanist view of life and the world. I wil grant you that I look on all of this from the viewpoint of the faith community, and specifically the Christian Faith Community, but I could cynically say that I saw this kind of event coming. Not this specific event, but one like it.

The older I get, the more I see the civility of community and neighborhood and friendship being eroded on the altar of "me firstism." Front porches are a thing of the past, replaced by tall privacy fences; "quid pro quo" has become a religious phrase; and the center of the universe has become wherever I am at any given moment. We--you and I--were created for the purpose of being in community with God. Read the creation story in the book of Genesis. Whether you think that is history or allegory, the point is the same. God created us to be companions and we try our darndest to not be. God even offered His Son, Jesus, to help bring us back, and we continue to mock his decision.

Instead of fixing blame, we ought to be re-thinking our priorities in the lives we are living and get back to trying to be companions of Christ. Then we can be good friends with the world, and something like the events of this week might be avoided again.

Pastor Realff Ottesen

Holy Week or Wholly Jesus?

Sometimes they call it "Holy Week" and it is filled with services that range from the waving of palm branches to putting out the lights to stripping the sanctuary to the stations of the cross to an all night vigil and services on Easter at sunrise and later in the morning. And the secular world chimes in with Easter egg hunts, and parades, and everyone in brand new outfits to look good in. And somewhere, midst all that clutter of activity is a lone man, abandoned to die by most of his friends, nailed to a cross with a couple of criminals.

His name is Jesus, and I hope that we don't lose sight of him in the crowd of Easter time. If we concentrate on what really happened and what came before it and after it, and has yet to happen, we can turn this week into one where we can become "wholly" Jesus adopted brother or sister. Easter Sunday is a high time when a lot of parttime Christians come out of hiding and pay their respects to Jesus and then go back into hiding for another year. The Sunday after Easter is often called "Low Sunday" because the attendance is the lowest for the year. Not a very good sign that Jesus made a real impression on the lives of those who were in church the week before.

My challenge to all of you is to disprove that history. On Easter Sunday, come and become "wholly" Jesus follower. Turn your entire life over to his grace and bask in the glow that comes from his presence with you from that day on.