Could it happen here?

I struggled last week trying to make sense of the senseless. The terrible shootings at Virginia Tech: the young lives that had so much potential; the popular professors who had inspired so many; the one desperate life that so seldom spoke but screamed by taking so many lives with him.
Like the Psalmist, we cry out to God! Where is justice? Where is righteousness? Where are you in all of this? Did you go on Spring Break, God? How could you allow this to happen?
Did the mental health system fail us? Did the gun control laws not work? What changes do we need to make to make sure this never happens again?
What changes do we need to make to make sure this never happens again? Yes, it bears repeating.
In our society we are great at placing blame. We find someone to take the fall. Who in the Justice Department must leave? Who does the 9/11 Commission say was responsible? Should Nifong be disbarred? How about the dog food crisis?
We aren’t nearly as good at accepting responsibility, particularly when it hits close to home.
I can’t and won’t judge those who were around this young man. I can’t say I would have done any better than roommates who got no response from him in sharing a room with him for a school year. Or the mental health professionals who tried to crack his tough shell.
But I should have tried. And I should try.
One of the things I love about living in a small town is caring people. Depending on how you look at it, it’s a burden as well. Maybe a yoke.
We all are little people at times in our lives. We get depressed, lonely, and sometimes in this big world, we feel like we don’t make a difference. In the big city, it’s easy to feel lost. You’re a number, an address on a street, and a piece of mail that says “occupant.” Maybe someone says to you emptily “Let’s do lunch sometime?”
When you go to a small school, it’s harder to get lost, particularly if you are around caring people. If there are fewer than 100 in your church on an average Sunday morning, caring people know when you are not there. If there are five people at your work, it’s easier taking the time to listen to someone’s problems.
When you see someone coming down the street that you know is hurting, in the big city it is easy to turn away and say you have somewhere else you are suppose to be right now. In a small town, it’s easier to take the time to stop and say I can make a difference today. Even when that person is hard to love, just making the effort says something powerful to that person: that you care enough to try.
I get frequent emails about children who are battling enormous medical monsters. I see community rallies to help pay medical expenses for families in those circumstances. Whose heart isn’t touched by the struggles of the helpless and young?
How about the unlovely? How about the ones who make us feel uncomfortable? How about the ones who don’t return our kindness as we would want our kindness returned? How about the young man at Virginia Tech who wouldn’t speak back when spoken to?
Could it happen here? It could if there aren’t enough caring people around like you and me, who take the time to say, “You’re important to me!”