Sharing Our Story: One with Virginia Tech

A reflection I wrote for the c3 ezine.  If you would like to sign up for news on progressive christianity and integral spirituality from Christ Community Church  please check out our website.


As the tears begin to trickle down my face, I realize the tragedy that has struck Virginia Tech has now found its way into my heart and has touched me too. After the details and news quips fill us up, and as days pass conversations inevitably will begin with the classic question, of where were you when you heard the news? And just as we have done after the planes hit the World Trade Center and countless other tragedies, we will compare notes through this ritual of incidental sharing. It is through that exchange that we too become a part of the story. It becomes our story, as we all share that one moment in time. The moment when our lives were changed, and our outlook on the world was forever altered.

But before we get to the remembering stage we have to face today as we are now, in the stages of yearning for information, and of utter shock and disbelief. As we immerse ourselves in the situation, as it becomes more and more real to us, our perspectives begin to shift in an almost fluid-like motion. We sense a change, a new connection, we are no longer just outsiders looking in watching from a distance.

And as each tear rolls down our cheek our new perspectives emerge as we realize: we are the reporters trying to hold our composure as we interview shaken college kids trying to make sense of a senseless act; we are administrators and law enforcement officials doing our jobs, under the most intense situations with the pressures to offer leadership after witnessing the most horrific of sights; we are the witnesses to the violence feeling anger, horror, guilt, and a numbness that threatens the very essence of our humanity; we are the parents desperate to protect, to talk with and to hold our children in our arms; we are the parents in disbelief still waiting for the grave opportunity to see our child for the last time in the overcrowded coroners office; we are the victims fighting in hospitals to hold onto our shattered lives; we are the crowd chanting in powerful unison "Let's Go Hokies"; we are the victims who woke up one Monday morning not knowing it would be our last; we are the heroic professor sacrificing our own life, for the lives of the students we care deeply for; and we are the shooter knowing a hollowing deep depression, despair, and loneliness that could lead to the manifestation of this unbelievable event.

We do not need to ask, "Where were you when..." we were there, as we are there now, and as we are there in the future. This story of tragedy is our story, yours and mine, and it is the story of the world. Each tear is deeply felt falling from our face. And each tear fills the river of joy and sorrow that connects the world.

The following inspirational poem from Thich Nhat Hanh may offer a path of compassion for us all.

Click here to listen to Thich Nhat Hanh reading his poem.

Please Call Me By My True Names

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow -
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.