Monday, April 16, 2007

Blacksburg, Virginia: killings on campus

Words fail.

Richard, again, brings news and prayers. It turns out Bishop Marc (Andrus, of the Episcopal Diocese of California, my former home) has a personal connection with Virginia Tech, as does his wife Sheila.

A violent society, we U.S. are. A student, in my office, comments on recent occurrences of violence. I remember my reaction as an eleven-year old hearing about JFK's assassination. MLK's murder when I was not quite sixteen. The Kent State killings my first year in college. The shooting at Morningside Baptist Church in Boston, two decades ago. Death by guns by men.


O God who brought us to birth
and in whose arms we die;
in our grief and shock
contain and comfort us;
embrace us with your love
give us hope in our confusion,
and grace to let go into new life,
through Jesus Christ, Amen.

************(((a prayer by Janet Morley)

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