Conversation Point

The Most Important Step

It has been a very long week.

The victims of Monday's shooting rampage at Virginia Tech are on their way home. Their parents, families, friends and colleagues have grieved with dignity before us and now are due their privacy to continue that journey.

For myself, I have stopped watching the news and reading the articles about that day. I am numb with the retelling, but also the senselessness of questions that appear to inspire insight, but instead are aimed directly at our fears and our need to rest blame. Did the president of Virginia Tech act in time? Should the Blacksburg police have sealed the campus into lock down? Why was there no system in place to deal with such a potential situation? Should the shooter's now obvious problems have been dealt with differently when they arose? Sometimes we simply need to stand in the pain and confusion, the unknowingness of what is before we can begin to understand what the next best step will be.

Through the din of voices discussing this horrific event, a little bit of hopeful sense has gleamed, a light in a dark tunnel. A young man whose sister died at Columbine High School eight years ago has spoken eloquently about carrying his sister's legacy of love and compassion to schools all across our country. His belief is that had he not been able to forgive his sister's killers his own anger and grief would have consumed him, perhaps pushing him to kill someone else. Focussing on those who lost their lives, not what the shooter did to cut those lives short, is something he also stressed. Who they were still matters very much. His work has prevented numerous acts of violence that would have otherwise only come to light after the fact on the evening news.

Another young man, Garret Evans, was in Jamie Bishop's Intro to German class on Monday when the gunman entered the room. Evans was shot in the leg and is thankful that three of his classmates held the door against the gunman's attempt to reenter the room. While discussing his experience with Harry Smith of the CBS Morning Show, Evans said he didn't blame his attacker. He wished he had met him before this happened so that he could have reached out to him in some way. Smith asked, "Do you know how crazy that sounds?" Evans replied that he did, but he had forgiven the shooter because the most important step is to forgive.

We have a hard time with forgiveness, whether it comes to call between friends in the middle of a heated disagreement or a situation as grave as Virginia Tech. We see it as giving in, giving something undeserved, and giving up our own power to continue the grievance. Often, people will say they forgive, but will not forget. A devotional I receive from a United Church of Christ radio ministry pointed out that a lot of people think this is a Biblical tenet. But no, it is not. The only thing the Bible says about forgiveness is that when we forgive God forgives us.

The Amish of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, testified to this most basic portion of our Christian theology when their children were gunned down last year. I remember a newscast from those sad days as well, sharing the profound moment of a man called out of his fields to tell the world that, "We believe we must forgive or Jesus won't forgive us." That night, a group of people from this deeply wounded community went to the family of the man responsible for their grief to offer their forgiveness and embrace them as among their own.

When we forgive we are forgiven and we can heal. Then we can go on to live and grow and change the world for the better. Forgiveness takes courage, wisdom and strength. But it also demands letting go of destructive, limiting, paralyzing fear. Forgiveness is necessary at the most inconvenient times, and required when it destroys us not to. When we forgive we are assured that we are forgiven. It is another moment to remember that forgiveness is the most important step. Forgiveness is everything.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 8:19 PM