'bad' vs. 'good'

I really hesitate to comment here on serious stuff. That's not really want I want my blog to be about. Not to opine on current events, because, really, other people usually have far better, or at least more informed, thoughts than do I. Sometimes I worry that folks will think I don't run at all deep because of this. But I guess people can think whatever they want to. We seem to all feel a need to be 'known,' and I think that's a good thing, but not everyone can truly know us. So few really can (if it's possible at all -- sometimes I think I don't know myself anymore. If I ever did). And the biases we all bring to the relationships with each other color the ways we know others, anyway.

I am really hesitant to comment on this Va. Tech tragedy, because, again, I'm a relative newcomer to Virginia. It's not my area; it's not my thing. And I hate to make something that's so serious, and so devastating, to so many others "All About Me." Because it's not. So, well, I guess I'll just offer my apologies and acknowledgments that my thoughts on this matter are so vastly insignificant when compared to the loss and pain so many are feeling now around all this. But, what can I add to that? What can I say to or about those people? I'm praying for you. I'm aching for you. But I don't actually know you, so, for me, it's harder to know what more I can do.

Please forgive me for the comparatively shallow thoughts to come. And yet... I'm going to comment anyway.

On to my point.

What's been kind of interesting to me, and to my husband, I think, is how directly indirectly this "incident" has targeted some recent thoughts of ours. Some hopes and plans. Now, I should say, I'm a second-generation Washington State Coug, and it kind of sucks that the odds of my child(ren) attending Wazzu are slim and none, but I think Matt and I have been assuming that we'll start our own tradition, probably here. For whatever reason, we've been thinking in terms of Lizzy going to Va. Tech. She can go, or not go, wherever she wants, I hasten to add, but it's become symbolic for us of her future to think of her going there. Why? Maybe because we have some dear friends who went there. Maybe because Matt, who missed the four-year, on-campus college experience, spent some time with his (at the time) college-going friends in that town. Maybe it's because his dad owns some land nearby. Maybe it's because the descriptions I've heard remind me a little of my alma mater. I don't know.

As you know, we recently moved into a neighborhood that we thought, and still think, is pretty much "it" for us. It's all we could ever ask for. And more. And in that, it's a little embarrassing. It makes me feel really materialistic, and American (in all the bad ways), to think that. And yet I revel in it anyway. The beautiful flowers and landscaping. The neighbors who seem to care about their property, and each other. The prospect of a pool and tennis courts this summer. The cul-de-sacs that remind me of my childhood home. The beautiful homes. It goes on and on.
A couple of weekends ago, we were taking a ride/stroll/skate through the neighborhood together -- I believe I mentioned it here earlier -- and Matt said, "This place is like 'The Matrix'. Like someone took all the visions in my head of the perfect neighborhood and created it and put me in it. Like it couldn't possibly actually exist."
"Enjoy the steak while you've got it," I said.

Another thing that makes the 'hood so great and perfect to us -- there are many things, but this is the biggest -- is the school district. If we stay here, Lizzy will go to a very fine high school. I know no place is perfect -- believe me, I know -- and maybe perfection shouldn't be strived for, anyway? But we seem to keep trying. We're quite pleased that she should receive a fine education there. We love to just drive by it and stare in wonder at its glory. To see the empty football stands and visualize the buzz and camaraderie that accompanies a Friday night prep football game. A game so close to our house, we will be able to hear it from our backyard.

And so, I found it entirely weird that the guy who did all this shooting at Va. Tech graduated from the high school that we thought of in such glowing, golden terms. Now we're seeing visuals of the front of the high school from our own living rooms -- in the background on the local news, as the media descend. It's a reminder to me that forces of good and evil (heh, as I read over this, I should point out that I'm not referring to the media) are everywhere. And, frankly, in everyone. We can't escape from it. We can't hide. And we're not meant to. We're meant to BE the good, wherever we are. To be the salt and the light. To live lives of righteousness, that simply make no sense to those with appetites for destruction. To push back the darkness, and to be there for those who are being tempted to succumb to it. But it's so hard to know how to do that a lot of the time.

And it's hard, SO hard, to have faith that all will be well for my child(ren). I guess that's what drives us to do all that we can to protect her/them; to try to channel her/them to green pastures. As green as we can make them. I already ache at the knowledge that my Lizzy will stumble and fall down sometimes. But I know she will, and she must, and I just pray that she knows to reach out for God's hand to help her get up. That she asks Him to carry her when she feels she can't go on.

I suspect our week of Disneyland will give me a whole lot more to think about along these lines. Talk about your artificially happy visions of perfection. But it's a place you cannot stay. Not for long. You have to go back out and face the 'real world' eventually. To know that you aren't safe, not really, anywhere. And somehow be okay with that.
I know I'm not meant to make my home here. I know. It's just hard to, well, KNOW that.

Lord, be with those who knew and know the victims (dead and alive) of this tragedy. Be with them. Strengthen, comfort and heal them, and if there can be any good to come of this, help it to come.
Amen.