Today, I want to start by addressing the shooting at Va. Tech. this week. I have followed the news this week, as you have. It seems to me that the cause of this shooting was mental illness exacerbated by the immigrant experience. So, the first thing I want to say is that we need to take the stigma out of mental illness and say that it’s ok to get help for that illness. It is much better to get help for mental illness than to see the much greater tragedy that we have witnessed this week.
I’d also like to say that among the many things I heard and read this week, there are two pieces that that I’d like to share with you. The first one is from Brooks Brown, now 26, who was a senior at Columbine High School when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves in 1999. This is what he said this week after the Va. Tech. shooting. I am quoting him (www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9658182):
“Close to eight years ago, a friend of my father’s said these words to me:
‘This has never happened to anyone before. So however you handle it is probably right.’
A few days earlier — April 20, 1999 — a friend of mine, Eric Harris, said some words to me that would change my life forever. ‘Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home.’
After the killing, I couldn’t make sense of anything that had happened. I had cut myself off from my family, I had cried in private for hours, and I stayed awake for days on end, simply sitting and watching the news. And then I was told these words. And these words I pass on to the survivors at Virginia Tech.
‘This has never happened to anyone before. So however you handle it is probably right.’
The words immediately rang true. I began openly talking to the friends I had left, to my parents, to my brother. What I discovered was that I was not the only one in such horrible pain. That may sound stupid — obviously everyone else was hurting too. It was stupid — but those are the feelings each of us had. As I cried with my friends, they, too, cried. They admitted they felt alone. They let the pain out, and they began to handle everything just a little bit better.
Since it has been the better part of a decade since Columbine happened, the students of Columbine are in the rare position of being able to say how to handle it; enough time has passed we can see the long-term effects of our choices. For those of us who openly shared our thoughts, who cried, and who dealt with the pain immediately after it happened, we’re not doing too bad. It still hurts, I still find occasion to cry. But those who never dealt with it find themselves unable to handle the simplest things. A fire alarm goes off, a balloon pops, or a police car drives by, and they find themselves doubled over in anguish, unable to move. Some still refuse to speak about what happened – their parents won’t talk about it, their friends have moved away, and the children of Columbine suffer alone, quietly.
So as you move onward from this tragedy at Virginia Tech — don’t turn a blind eye to your own suffering or the suffering of those around you. We tend to pass by — and you will. You’ll see someone you go to school with sitting outside near a tree, alone. They’ll be crying, and you’ll empathize, but not stop to talk to them. Or perhaps you’ll visit the grave site of a fallen friend, trying to hold back the tears – afraid those around you will judge you for crying. I know you’ll do this – I know because I was that person by the tree, and I was the brave young man trying not to cry. And that’s OK. We all deal with these things in different ways — and that, in essence, is the point of what my father’s friend was saying. It doesn’t matter how we deal with it — as long as we do” (Brooks Brown, now 26, is the author of No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine).
So we need to deal with it. We can’t ignore it and bury it inside of ourselves.
The second piece I’d like to share with you is this statement of apology issued by the shooter’s sister, Sun Kyung Cho.
’We Are So Deeply Sorry’
Saturday, April 21, 2007; Washington Post, A08
The statement issued to the Associated Press by Sun Kyung Cho, sister of Seung Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman:
“On behalf of our family, we are so deeply sorry for the devastation my brother has caused. No words can express our sadness that 32 innocent people lost their lives this week in such a terrible, senseless tragedy.
We are heartbroken.
We grieve alongside the families, the Virginia Tech community, our State of Virginia, and the rest of the nation. And, the world.
Every day since April 16, my father, mother and I pray for students Ross Abdallah Alameddine, Brian Roy Bluhm, Ryan Christopher Clark, Austin Michelle Cloyd, Matthew Gregory Gwaltney, Caitlin Millar Hammaren, Jeremy Michael Herbstritt, Rachael Elizabeth Hill, Emily Jane Hilscher, Jarrett Lee Lane, Matthew Joseph La Porte, Henry J. Lee, Partahi Mamora Halomoan Lumbantoruan, Lauren Ashley McCain, Daniel Patrick O’Neil, J. Ortiz-Ortiz, Minal Hiralal Panchal, Daniel Alejandro Perez, Erin Nicole Peterson, Michael Steven Pohle Jr., Julia Kathleen Pryde, Mary Karen Read, Reema Joseph Samaha, Waleed Mohamed Shaalan, Leslie Geraldine Sherman, Maxine Shelly Turner, Nicole White, Instructor Christopher James Bishop, and Professors Jocelyne Couture-Nowak, Kevin P. Granata, Liviu Librescu and G.V. Loganathan.
We pray for their families and loved ones who are experiencing so much excruciating grief. And we pray for those who were injured and for those whose lives are changed forever because of what they witnessed and experienced.
Each of these people had so much love, talent and gifts to offer, and their lives were cut short by a horrible and senseless act.
We are humbled by this darkness. We feel hopeless, helpless and lost. This is someone that I grew up with and loved. Now I feel like I didn’t know this person.
We have always been a close, peaceful and loving family. My brother was quiet and reserved, yet struggled to fit in. We never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.
He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare.
There is much justified anger and disbelief at what my brother did, and a lot of questions are left unanswered. Our family will continue to cooperate fully and do whatever we can to help authorities understand why these senseless acts happened. We have many unanswered questions as well.
Our family is so very sorry for my brother’s unspeakable actions. It is a terrible tragedy for all of us.”
It is horrible what happened this week.
And that’s why this week we might feel stress, fear, and sadness. It’s ok. It’s normal. God knows our feelings.
Our children and teenagers might have these feelings too and we need to talk to them, to hug them, to reassure them that we love them, and that the combined efforts of schools and public safety organizations are dedicated to their continued safety.
We need to know - and our children need to know - that God is still in control, so we do not need to be anxious about the future. And we need to be reminded that God cares for us, so we can freely come before him with our fears. So I’d like for us to pray together at this time for all the victims, their families and friends, for the Va. Tech. community, for the state of Va., for our children and teens, for our parents, for our nation, and in fact the world. Let us pray.
“Lord, in such a time as this, we cry out to you. We ask you, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 the one who comforts us in all our troubles, to comfort the families and friends who have lost loved ones in the shooting; embrace them, Lord. And embrace the Cho family too. You call us to grieve with those who grieve, and that’s what we are doing now. We grieve with them.
And we ask you to comfort the Va. Tech. community, the state of Va., and in fact our nation. And we ask you that if we are in touch in some way with those who have lost loved ones, that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
We cry out to you Lord, for you are our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. 2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. Lord, you are still in control.
Our hope continues to be in you. 8 Save us from all our transgressions; "Hear our prayer, O LORD, listen to our cry for help; be not deaf to our weeping.
And for those who have died with faith in Jesus Christ, we can rejoice in the sense that we know that in all these things we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. 38 For we are convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. They are in heaven now.
We pray for our children and teenagers and young adults that you would protect them from evil. We pray that they would have you fully as their Lord, so that they can experience that even if they walk through the valley of the shadow of death, they will fear no evil, for you are with them; your rod and your staff, they comfort them.
We pray for parents, who needs comforting too, that they would have godly wisdom in raising their children, which does not always mean more money and education, but also understanding of their children, and to not be afraid to seek help and support for themselves and their children when they need it.
We pray that as a community of schools, churches, agencies, institutions, and just plain simple folks, we would band together to support and help one another, paying special attention to those who are weaker or ill in some ways or those who are newer and adjusting to this country - the alien and the stranger.
We cry out to you and ask that you would have mercy upon us and our nation and our world. And instead of hatred and violence, teach us the ways of Jesus Christ, the ways of truth, humility, giving, and compassion. Teach us to pray the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, 10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
