Making Sense of Virginia Tech

Lately, I’ve been struggling over the fact that my faith has not been rocked by the Virginia Tech murders. I don’t struggle existentially about why evil exists or why God allows evil, or even where God is in the face of evil. If anything, I’ve been struggling over my lack of struggle. Virginia Tech, 9/11, Iraq. All tragedies. Tragedies among many tragedies across time and cultures. But, they do not rock my faith. Why?

Like Virginia Tech, I watched with horror as the 9/11 events transpired over those first few hours. But, as I watched, I could see God. I saw God more prominently than the evil. I saw God everywhere. I saw him suffering with the nation. I saw him jump with the man and woman holding hands. I saw him cry as we cried. I saw him act with the brave men and women. So many brave men and women trying to be men and women for others. “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” Mt 25:40. In all honesty, everything I’ve heard about Virginia Tech gives me the same feeling as 9/11. Instead of holding hands with the couple that jumped from the World Trade Center, God was holding the classroom doors with the teachers and playing dead on the floor with the students.

Coincidently (providentially??) I am in a group that is currently discussing the book “Evil and the Justice of God” by N.T. Wright. We met last night to discuss the second chapter about God and evil in the Old Testament. I like his conclusion of Chapter 2, “This is not, I think, exactly the same as the ‘free-will defense.’ It is more a ‘commitment to action’ on God’s part, coupled with the settled affirmation of creation as still basically good. God cannot undo that good creation even though it has gone wrong. He will therefore act from within the world he as created.” (pg. 74) And, for those of us who are Christians, no place is this more true than with Jesus on the cross. By becoming one of us, God truly acts from within the world to transform all evil into good. (Read James Alison for a great take on transformation from within.)

Father Schlegel is right. Events like this may give me pause as to the deep questions surrounding life and death, evil and God. But, more so, events like this give me pause as to the divisions in my own self, the relationships I need to mend, the violence in my heart that divides and separates me from God and others. How can I open myself to see and work with God’s grace more in my own life?