Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing Where have all the flowers gone? Long time ago Where have all the flowers gone? Girls have picked them every one When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn? April 16, 2007.
Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 students and professors at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
, and then in a grandiose gesture of paranoia shot and killed himself.
As Cho's sister Sun-Kyung said in the family's statement after news of the massacre spread around the globe, "He ...
made the world weep.
" Folksinger Pete Seeger in the first four verses of his 1960's anthem "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" wants to know when some unknown, vague entity he calls "they" will ever learn.
But what I wonder after the horrendous massacre at Virginia Tech is not when will "they" ever learn.
What I wonder is:When will "we" ever learn? After each event like this one - and, yes, even though this was the worst killing by a shooting in this country's modern history, we can cite many, seemingly endless numbers of such acts that have blasted our world apart.
Just four days after the killings at Virginia Tech, a contract worker killed a hostage and himself on the Houston NASA campus.
We can name others; we can name too many others.
And so I wonder.
I wonder if we will ever learn.
Or if we simply will choose to implode.
And, after each incident like this one, people turn to psychologists and theologians to try to understand what has happened.
An understandable impulse, even if futile, really,in the end.
People want to know how God can allow it.
People haul out the horrid cliché that their faith in God is being tested.
For me, it is quite different.
For me, it is not my faith in God that is tested during such heartbreaking times.
I am convinced that in God's love, God created us with free will and that God does not rescind that fundamental gift simply because we choose to use it for destructive purposes instead of to participate with God in the act of creating good.
If God did that, it would say to me that God's love for us is conditional, not unconditional, and thereby is not real.
It would be then that my faith would tremble on its foundation.
Rather than wondering where God is in all this, it is my faith in humankind that suffers.
I begin to wonder if we will go so far that God will be unable to save us because of God's decision not to manipulate our actions, our behaviors, our thoughts, our plans.
I begin to believe that we do not deserve God's mercy; we do not deserve God's forgiveness; we do not deserve God's help.
In the Genesis story of Adam and Eve and the most famous of all apples, biblical scholars and preachers have interpreted the fall of humankind and the exile from the Garden of Eden as having its root in arrogance.
In Adam and Eve's drive to know everything that the tree of knowledge could tell them, the drive to become equal with God.
That arrogance lives still slithering serpent-like through our midst, especially revealing itself in our determination to have our own way.
Our determination to hold the rights of one person over the rights of the common good.
Our rights to buy guns with the flimsiest of restrictions - even being able to purchase weapons and ammunition over the Internet.
Our rights to have power, control, every desire gratified and gratified now,with not one moment of delay.
Our determination to continue to produce movies, television programs and video games bristling with violence and hatred.
Our determination to have a bellicose president who now has us in two wars, not one, at once.
Our determination to dismiss any voices that warn us that our cherished culture of violence will give birth only to more Virginia Tech massacres.
Countries around the world wonder during times such as this if our country will at last see its arrogant refusal to change, its arrogant clinging to a self-destructive culture and choose to do something, anything, different.
And I wonder that, too.
Beyond that, it would be comforting if the United States were the only country that needed to engage in such introspection.
But such violence, as we know, erupts each day all over the planet.
And I wonder:Will we ever learn?Or not?In our determination to eat the apple of knowledge, to garner and hoard power and control for ourselves, will we simply choose to self-destruct? Another question comes to me after each of these horrific events.
And that is the question:Where have all the parents gone?Are we so absorbed in making sure that all the grown-ups in the world are treated equally, given all the same opportunities, making whatever amount of money we determine to be what we need or what we deserve that we just do not have time to focus on our children anymore?That we do not know what they are doing, that we do not notice when they are sullen, troubled or withdrawn?Or if we do notice, we are so preoccupied that we just cannot give it the attention it needs?That we simply do not know what to do when we sense "something is wrong?"Are we so busy now that we just do not have the time or energy for nurturing our children? I remember saying when my older son was a baby almost 30 years ago as I watched more and more children being shunted off to institutional daycares that we would pay for that some day.
I certainly am not right about everything, but I was right about that.
I feel that the world is exploding, and I think much of the reason for that has to do with our relationships with our children.
So often, we are either overloading our children with focus and attention as we compete to be the best parent on the soccer team, or we simply have too much to do to give our children the time, energy, devotion they need.
Where have all the young girls gone? Long time passing Where have all the young girls gone? Long time ago Where have all the young men gone? Long time passing Where have all the young men gone? Long time ago I am enraged when I hear or read about someone saying that nobody reached out to help the assassin Cho.
I have heard numerous students and professors speak of ways in which they tried - unsuccessfully - to incorporate Cho into their social or academic environments in a healthier way than he appeared to be choosing for himself.
To add such unfair accusations to this week marred forever by the grossest unfairness of all is simply to add more grief and rage where already more grief and rage exist than can be borne even by all of us collected together.
Our young people.
Our dear young people.
Bright-eyed, fun, energetic, intelligent, full of the promise of that which is still to come.
And so vulnerable.
This week, just four days after that black Virginia Monday, I was driving through the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta when a young man appeared just outside my car window.
He was trying to get across the street.
As we looked at each other, I felt a connection with him as if he were one of them.
As if he were one of those attacked on Monday.
On that same trip, I needed to get from my lane to the other and was having trouble because of the traffic.
I looked to the driver to my left; it turned out to be a young man who graciously waved me over in front of his car.
Another time to connect with another one of those precious souls.
And it was another young man who helped to carry part of my burden of grief this week.
When I went to my tennis lesson just three days after the killings, I told my coach that I was really tired, that I didn't have much energy, and that I attributed the way I felt to the grieving process.
I lived in Alexandria, Va.
, for most of my adult life, and the names of the hometowns of many who were killed and wounded werepart of my world, my home.
When I told my coach about my overwhelming sadness, he simply stood at the net and listened to me and shared with me the atrocity of what had happened.
The way he listened, the words he spoke, helped to lift a bit of the weight off me.
And I was grateful.
And one other young man helped me, too, although I can't grasp it fully yet.
One of the Virginia Tech EMTs said even in the midst of this devastation that he believes "goodness" will prevail in the end.
His voice was low, his face had a calm expression on it as he spoke about the prevailing goodness upon which we can count.
He was not preaching, ranting.
He simply spoke the truth as he sees it.
Right now, my shock and numbness are so great that I can only hear these words and hope with my intellect that that is the case.
I can't feel it yet.
But that young man did give me hope.
And for that, I will always be grateful.
The young man also helps me see that I have, after all, allowed the evil embedded in the slaughter at Virginia Tech and other slaughters of innocents to diminish my faith, to limit in my mind God's capability to forgive, to constrict God to a more human level, to question God's ability to save.
And in that way, I have allowed evil another triumph, even if only temporarily.
The EMT's words remind me that I cannot, must not, lose my conviction that God has saved us already, once and for all, and that that can never be undone, no matter what.
That God's impulse to save comes from God's unfathomable wellspring of love, that which defines God's nature as Love itself.
That God's impulse to save comes from the deepest part of God's being.
And that God has acted mightily to save not because we deserve it but precisely because we do not deserve it.
Where have all the graveyards gone? Long time passing Where have all the graveyards gone? Long time ago Where have all the graveyards gone? Covered with flowers every one When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn Yes, at the end of his song, Seeger does at last ask the question that I couldn't wait to ask.
Finally, he wants to know:"When will we ever learn?"And the question remains.
Ah, indeed: When will they ever learn? When will we ever learn? When will I ever learn? copyright2007Servant-Leader Publications, Inc.
Seung-Hui Cho murdered 32 students and professors at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.
, and then in a grandiose gesture of paranoia shot and killed himself.
As Cho's sister Sun-Kyung said in the family's statement after news of the massacre spread around the globe, "He ...
made the world weep.
" Folksinger Pete Seeger in the first four verses of his 1960's anthem "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" wants to know when some unknown, vague entity he calls "they" will ever learn.
But what I wonder after the horrendous massacre at Virginia Tech is not when will "they" ever learn.
What I wonder is:When will "we" ever learn? After each event like this one - and, yes, even though this was the worst killing by a shooting in this country's modern history, we can cite many, seemingly endless numbers of such acts that have blasted our world apart.
Just four days after the killings at Virginia Tech, a contract worker killed a hostage and himself on the Houston NASA campus.
We can name others; we can name too many others.
And so I wonder.
I wonder if we will ever learn.
Or if we simply will choose to implode.
And, after each incident like this one, people turn to psychologists and theologians to try to understand what has happened.
An understandable impulse, even if futile, really,in the end.
People want to know how God can allow it.
People haul out the horrid cliché that their faith in God is being tested.
For me, it is quite different.
For me, it is not my faith in God that is tested during such heartbreaking times.
I am convinced that in God's love, God created us with free will and that God does not rescind that fundamental gift simply because we choose to use it for destructive purposes instead of to participate with God in the act of creating good.
If God did that, it would say to me that God's love for us is conditional, not unconditional, and thereby is not real.
It would be then that my faith would tremble on its foundation.
Rather than wondering where God is in all this, it is my faith in humankind that suffers.
I begin to wonder if we will go so far that God will be unable to save us because of God's decision not to manipulate our actions, our behaviors, our thoughts, our plans.
I begin to believe that we do not deserve God's mercy; we do not deserve God's forgiveness; we do not deserve God's help.
In the Genesis story of Adam and Eve and the most famous of all apples, biblical scholars and preachers have interpreted the fall of humankind and the exile from the Garden of Eden as having its root in arrogance.
In Adam and Eve's drive to know everything that the tree of knowledge could tell them, the drive to become equal with God.
That arrogance lives still slithering serpent-like through our midst, especially revealing itself in our determination to have our own way.
Our determination to hold the rights of one person over the rights of the common good.
Our rights to buy guns with the flimsiest of restrictions - even being able to purchase weapons and ammunition over the Internet.
Our rights to have power, control, every desire gratified and gratified now,with not one moment of delay.
Our determination to continue to produce movies, television programs and video games bristling with violence and hatred.
Our determination to have a bellicose president who now has us in two wars, not one, at once.
Our determination to dismiss any voices that warn us that our cherished culture of violence will give birth only to more Virginia Tech massacres.
Countries around the world wonder during times such as this if our country will at last see its arrogant refusal to change, its arrogant clinging to a self-destructive culture and choose to do something, anything, different.
And I wonder that, too.
Beyond that, it would be comforting if the United States were the only country that needed to engage in such introspection.
But such violence, as we know, erupts each day all over the planet.
And I wonder:Will we ever learn?Or not?In our determination to eat the apple of knowledge, to garner and hoard power and control for ourselves, will we simply choose to self-destruct? Another question comes to me after each of these horrific events.
And that is the question:Where have all the parents gone?Are we so absorbed in making sure that all the grown-ups in the world are treated equally, given all the same opportunities, making whatever amount of money we determine to be what we need or what we deserve that we just do not have time to focus on our children anymore?That we do not know what they are doing, that we do not notice when they are sullen, troubled or withdrawn?Or if we do notice, we are so preoccupied that we just cannot give it the attention it needs?That we simply do not know what to do when we sense "something is wrong?"Are we so busy now that we just do not have the time or energy for nurturing our children? I remember saying when my older son was a baby almost 30 years ago as I watched more and more children being shunted off to institutional daycares that we would pay for that some day.
I certainly am not right about everything, but I was right about that.
I feel that the world is exploding, and I think much of the reason for that has to do with our relationships with our children.
So often, we are either overloading our children with focus and attention as we compete to be the best parent on the soccer team, or we simply have too much to do to give our children the time, energy, devotion they need.
Where have all the young girls gone? Long time passing Where have all the young girls gone? Long time ago Where have all the young men gone? Long time passing Where have all the young men gone? Long time ago I am enraged when I hear or read about someone saying that nobody reached out to help the assassin Cho.
I have heard numerous students and professors speak of ways in which they tried - unsuccessfully - to incorporate Cho into their social or academic environments in a healthier way than he appeared to be choosing for himself.
To add such unfair accusations to this week marred forever by the grossest unfairness of all is simply to add more grief and rage where already more grief and rage exist than can be borne even by all of us collected together.
Our young people.
Our dear young people.
Bright-eyed, fun, energetic, intelligent, full of the promise of that which is still to come.
And so vulnerable.
This week, just four days after that black Virginia Monday, I was driving through the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta when a young man appeared just outside my car window.
He was trying to get across the street.
As we looked at each other, I felt a connection with him as if he were one of them.
As if he were one of those attacked on Monday.
On that same trip, I needed to get from my lane to the other and was having trouble because of the traffic.
I looked to the driver to my left; it turned out to be a young man who graciously waved me over in front of his car.
Another time to connect with another one of those precious souls.
And it was another young man who helped to carry part of my burden of grief this week.
When I went to my tennis lesson just three days after the killings, I told my coach that I was really tired, that I didn't have much energy, and that I attributed the way I felt to the grieving process.
I lived in Alexandria, Va.
, for most of my adult life, and the names of the hometowns of many who were killed and wounded werepart of my world, my home.
When I told my coach about my overwhelming sadness, he simply stood at the net and listened to me and shared with me the atrocity of what had happened.
The way he listened, the words he spoke, helped to lift a bit of the weight off me.
And I was grateful.
And one other young man helped me, too, although I can't grasp it fully yet.
One of the Virginia Tech EMTs said even in the midst of this devastation that he believes "goodness" will prevail in the end.
His voice was low, his face had a calm expression on it as he spoke about the prevailing goodness upon which we can count.
He was not preaching, ranting.
He simply spoke the truth as he sees it.
Right now, my shock and numbness are so great that I can only hear these words and hope with my intellect that that is the case.
I can't feel it yet.
But that young man did give me hope.
And for that, I will always be grateful.
The young man also helps me see that I have, after all, allowed the evil embedded in the slaughter at Virginia Tech and other slaughters of innocents to diminish my faith, to limit in my mind God's capability to forgive, to constrict God to a more human level, to question God's ability to save.
And in that way, I have allowed evil another triumph, even if only temporarily.
The EMT's words remind me that I cannot, must not, lose my conviction that God has saved us already, once and for all, and that that can never be undone, no matter what.
That God's impulse to save comes from God's unfathomable wellspring of love, that which defines God's nature as Love itself.
That God's impulse to save comes from the deepest part of God's being.
And that God has acted mightily to save not because we deserve it but precisely because we do not deserve it.
Where have all the graveyards gone? Long time passing Where have all the graveyards gone? Long time ago Where have all the graveyards gone? Covered with flowers every one When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn Yes, at the end of his song, Seeger does at last ask the question that I couldn't wait to ask.
Finally, he wants to know:"When will we ever learn?"And the question remains.
Ah, indeed: When will they ever learn? When will we ever learn? When will I ever learn? copyright2007Servant-Leader Publications, Inc.
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