Grief, Anger, Confusion

How do we begin to understand what happened at NIU yesterday? The short answer is we don't. There is no explanation for what happened or why or to whom or by whom. It was an evil act committed by a man against his fellow men. An act made all the more tragic by the ages of the victims.

The families of the victims are obviously dealing with an inconsolable grief. The family of the shooter also dealing with grief and shame. But the emotions sweep a great distance farther still; the entire NIU community and Alumni, city of DeKalb, members of other Universities and the academic community in general, friends and neighbors of those people, on and on.

We are not the first community of people to deal with grief on a mass scale nor unfortunately will we be the last. But what are the lessons to learn? Should we close down our open society to improve security? Are evil acts against the society a simple reality we must learn to live with? Should we ban first-person shooter video games? Should we require psychiatric testing of all individuals and proactively lock up anybody who shows signs of sociopathic behavior? Should we sit on our hands, wait for the grief to pass and move on with our lives? I'm certainly not smart enough to answer any of these questions. I'm hardly smart enough to think of them.

So as we traverse this valley of darkness I'll offer this:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.