The End of the World

Seeing images of a place I once knew very well appear on my "Yahoo" homepage with the label "Massacre" is more than a little bit disconcerting. That gut feeling of insecurity, the sudden shift of the world on its axis, was akin to what I felt when I heard over the radio that four members of Christian Peacemaker Teams had been abducted in Iraq -- a matter of weeks after my aunt had returned from her work there with CPT. It's the inner knowledge that things are not right, the world is not as it should be. Worse, it's a reminder that the world is never as it should be, is never right, has not been right for centuries, will never be right until the end of all things.

I spent a lot of time at Virginia Tech while I was an undergrad at Radford. They're "sister" schools, and the on-campus church I worked with was planted by an organization based at Tech. I looked at those grey stone buildings on the news, saw the orange and maroon shirts, and I was transported back. I remember people, places -- a different life, one far removed from today in space, but not so far in time.

I remember working at Wendy's in Radford on September 11, 2001, after student teaching all day. I remember N., a really sweet kid, though not awfully sharp. He asked me that day, his head swimming with news of terrorists, bombs, wars, and Nostradamus, if I thought the world was coming to an end. I don't remember what I responded, out of my great 23-year-old wisdom. Probably something soothing and worthless, or possibly a little cynical after a long day.

The people on the news and in the classrooms today were full of the tragedy. How can people attack students, children, like this? How appalling that society drove a young man to such an action! Is this an argument for gun control? A reason to chastise the lack of communication and instant decision-making abilities in large universities? We should examine the weapons used, analyze the details of the attack, prevent such a thing from ever happening again!

Is it the end of the world?

Mankind has been inventing new and creative means of destruction since the beginning of time. We hurt each other, physically, mentally, socially, economically. We are psychotic, neurotic, schizophrenic, and depressed. We have eating disorders and self-injurious behaviors and dysfunctional families. Looking at the great scheme of things, I think we always have done. There is nothing new under the sun -- new methods and materials, perhaps, but the same motivations.

Is it the end of the world? Yes, N., I think it is. But the world has been ending for centuries. We have no security here; it's times like these that remind me of that anew.