for i am put together with stardust...

i am broken-hearted over virginia tech. and couldn't it have just as easily been my friends, my classmates, my sister, myself? and maybe, in some small way, it is. but i so wonder, in places like this, what it means when people call for justice to be done. because haven't we all, in many ways, contributed to the brokenness of those who lose their love of life and so break entirely? not that it may ask us all to take the blame, but lead us to love more, bring wholeness instead of brokenness. i fear that when we call for justice, what we are really asking for is revenge.

also telling, i felt, was that the headline about the shootings, with the story of our president's statement of remorse, was followed directly by a story where the same man pressed for more funding for the war... but can't we see how these are linked? if we teach violence as the answer for our national problems, how can we not expect to learn and imitate this violence? this story reveals to me a young man who felt he had no other choice, who was lost and broken, and was somehow led to violence as the last remaining answer for his problems, whatever they were. wouldn't true justice, then, to be to teach love and peace, instead of more violence and anger, to our children? would not that honor those we have lost more than finding a scapegoat to absolve our grief? would that not better prevent further violence? we cannot end violence through violence. let us instead move more passionately and aggressively toward peaceful ways of resolving conflict- within ourselves and with others. would you rather have a beautiful garden planted, a scholarship for peacemaking, a foundation for those loved by your loved one in her honor, or a law that causes greater punishment, another death, another lost child told that he has no hope?

and though i still feel like i am in a phase of mourning, though not for my own beloved, i find the small joys around me in being alive... in my first of what will surely be many walks home from work, i am blessed by the things i see and hear around me... the flowers and different homes that tell the stories of so many lives and families, the laughter of brothers playing ball behind their house, a conversation between two men passing on the street, the always funny conversations of teenagers after school. and as always, i love the diversity... in accents and faces, it is so beautiful. if there are twenty more beautiful things about biking than driving, there are another twenty that you gain by slowing down to walk... twenty things you miss when you're going faster, being more closed off to the world. i look forward to finding thirty new paths between my home and my work before i leave, to discovering new sights and observing different lives each time. and so there is joy even in the seemingly frustrating parts of life, like theft. and maybe that's what it means that God makes all things new.