Life Choice
I have been thinking a lot about the recent events at Virginia Tech.
There are a lot of different ideas floating around in the soup of public thought. There are those who are concerned about the volatile mixture of firearms and easy access to college campuses. We’ve turned many of our high schools into limited access “green zones” in an effort to create a safer space. The whole concept of a limited access college campus seems to fly in the face of an open forum for exploration and the free exchange of ideas.
There are also those who are concerned about immigrants and willing to blame this incident on foreigners. That is understandable, but also short sighted. This country has gone through several waves of xenophobia. The resulting restrictions didn’t make the country any safer. In hindsight, the Japanese internment camps, for example, were an embarrassment to a democratic society that claims to believe in the rights of the minority and the rule of law. The vast majority of our citizens are here because someone came here from some other country. The great strength of this country is the fact that the American dream that attracted our forbearers still works today. Those who come here to pursue that dream are the ones who are building our country’s future.
Finally there are those who are concerned about how to deal with the disaffected, disturbed, or otherwise isolated individuals in our society who may at some time try to harm others. This is not so different from the discussion that we should close the borders and lock up all of the foreigners. Just substitute those with mental or physical challenges and you have pretty much the same thing. The Supreme Court is trying to decide, for example, whether it is constitutional to execute the mentally incompetent. As the parent of a special needs child, I can tell you that blessings come in all different sorts of packages. The more unique the package, the more special the blessing.
At the end of the day, it is all about fear. For those who don’t believe in God, it is the fear that man is unpredictable, life is fragile, and everyone is at risk. For those who believe in a loving God, that fear has its foundation in the thought that there can be an evil power at work in the world that is greater than God.
What comes to mind is the story about the Gaderene man in Mark and Luke. He was out of his mind, violent, could not be bound, lived in the graveyard, and everyone was afraid of him. Everyone, that is but Jesus, who healed him. He healed him by driving out all of the thoughts (characterized as devils) that this man had about himself that prevented him from acting in a more civilized way. The healing was so dramatic that people from the town rushed out to see what had happened. What they saw was a new man sitting by the fire “in his right mind”. They were terrified because they had a lot invested in the “old” man too, and it was difficult for them to accept any other reality. Gadarene has now come to mean anyone who rushes to their own destruction in a panic.
We have the same choice today.
In our fear and panic, we can look at the situation in Virginia and only see a deranged, violent, murderer. In accepting that, however, we also have to accept a bunch of random innocent victims and a God who doesn’t care or is powerless to do anything about it.
Those who trust in God’s power and His love have another choice. It’s the same choice that Jesus made. We can reject popular opinion, and work to see the same perfect child of God in Virginia that Jesus saw in the Gadarene hills. Allowing ourselves to see this man also frees us to see those children and all children forever secure in the embrace of their Creator. Finally, this healing view confirms that God is an ever present help in trouble and available to all who seek His comfort.
I know that some of you are skeptics and wonder what the point is. But those folks from the village were skeptics too. They weren’t going to believe until they saw it themselves and even then didn’t understand it and were afraid of this new world. I’m simply reminding you that you have a choice about what sort of world you would like to live in too.
“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” Deut 30:19