Raging, Ranting, Raving, and Rhapsodizing

On Wednesday I was riding the light rail home after writing my last post, filled with sadness. The route I was on goes through a very industrial area of Denver and through some ghetto neighborhoods. I was just looking at the landscape as we sped along, and all I could see was ugliness and waste. My eyes drifted down to the ground and I felt even more melancholy looking and the rocks and bits of trash strewn about. Is there no beauty in this world?

Then I noticed something else. Some of the rocks had bits of mica in them so that at a certain angle the sun would shine on them and reflect the light. Each little spark happened so fast and faded away just as quickly, but there were so many, and at such a great speed it was like this sea of rocks- this waste- was sparkling.

There's a lot of ugliness in this life. We live in a fallen, imperfect world. But I'm finding that if I look at life from the right angle there's a lot of beauty, too. Over the last few days I keep seeing those little explosions of light happening.

I saw a very pretty woman stop to give some money to a bum- and more importantly, to pause and really look at him- when every single other person had passed him without even acknowledging his existence. I saw a young father being sweet to his little girl at the light rail station. I saw a woman's face light up when her husband walked in the door of a restaurant to meet her. Every single morning since I started working here a year ago the FedEx delivery guy has walked in with a smile on his face and a nice thing to say.

These things seem rather insignificant in the grand scheme but when you string them all together the world starts to look a lot brighter.

6 months ago a 53 year old man entered a Castle Rock area high school and made national news. For whatever reason, he chose Platte Canyon High as his target and took a classroom of students hostage, waving a .40 glock in the air and claiming (falsely, it turned out) to have explosives in his backpack. He ended up letting all but 7 female students go and kept the remaining 7 hostage for several hours, during which time he sexually assaulted them and used them to communicate with officers outside the room.

I won't relate the whole story, as most people have heard the story. He fatally shot Emily Keyes and then shot himself. The police fired 3 shots, 1 to his head and 2 to his shoulder, but it was the self-inflicted GSW that ended up killing him. I'm not sure how much national coverage this is getting, but yesterday the police have made public a previously unreleased report, including the gunman's suicide letter.

I read the letter and had mixed feelings. I went back and forth between sympathy for the pathetic shell of a human being he had become and rage for the abominable crimes he chose to commit for, seemingly, no reason.

It's obvious that he's severely depressed and disturbed. He talked about childhood trauma, and I could relate. He expressed love for his family, sorrow for putting them through difficulties in the wake of "the bad things that are about to happen", and a last wish that they would just get along. It dawned on me that this man was merely human.

On the other hand, the letter is 14 pages long. It's not like this was a last minute thing. He appeared to have wrote it over several days and the letter gave a chilling impression of his steely resolve of will. Also he went on about a Harley dealership that supposedly cheated him on some bike parts and even wrote, "If things go as planned, I will try to make someone at the HD shop pay!". He called and threatened a woman at the dealership several times. Then he wrote her name on a dealership business card and put it into Emily's wallet. Was this supposed to be some bizarre form of retribution? In his entire letter, this man didn't apologize a single time to his victims or their families, or even express regret for what he he did (though he apologized numerous times to his siblings). Is this because things didn't go as planned? Did he mean to do what he did? Did it get out of hand, did he get desperate? What were his intentions?

We learn a little about his intentions from the contents of his backpack, which he threatened contained explosives sufficient to destroy the school. In reality he was carrying a stun gun, knives, rope, duct tape, handcuffs, and a several sexual aides. Sick monster. I'll be harsh about this: if you're miserable and want to kill yourself, fine. It's a selfish thing to do, it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but ultimately, everyone else keeps on living, finding closure in their own way. What this man did was so much worse of a tragedy because he took along a young woman who had just begun to live, and traumatized another 6.

It all seems so pointless and confusing. First Columbine, now this? I was surprised by a statement released by Emily's family. They expressed deep appreciation for the way the police handled the situation and praised the 6 young women escaped the classroom that day. Those 6 will have to be very brave, and very strong, and I pray for them and for Emily's family often.

It makes me profoundly sad to face the reality that this is the world we live in. This is the world that I will bring my children into, where individuals have free will to commit violent purposeless acts and very bad things often happen to innocent people. It's hard to find hope in that reality. I don't want to apply a simplistic, sugary, Christiany 'God-is-in-control" sentiment. That's a cliche answer to a cliche question and I'm not satisfied by it.

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear?
Even cry out to You, “Violence!” and You will not save. Why do You show me
iniquity, and cause me to see trouble? For plundering and violence are before
me; there is strife, and contention arises. Therefore the law is
powerless, and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the
righteous; therefore perverse judgment proceeds.

Habakkuk 1:2-4

Great Goodness. I'm not meant to sit at a desk for 9 hours a day. I don't think anyone is meant to, but there are those of you who can handle it. I am NOT one of those. I get cabin fever sitting in front of this computer all day long. There's only so long I can play sudoku and check the news before I start to lose it.

Then I get home but somehow doing nothing all day makes you feel exhausted so I never feel like doing anything.

I bought new tennis shoes a few months ago. "I like your shoes", said my friend John. "Thanks, they're trail running shoes" I replied. "Oh, do you trail run?" He said excitedly. HA! I say all the time that I'd rather die than run a mile. It turns out that John wants to start trail running this summer, and I made a deal with him that I would, too. Maybe trail running would be more interesting than running in the city? (Stephen warned me that this would come back to bite me in the butt).

Well, now I've decided that I will start getting up early to go for a run in the mornings (read: drag myself out of warm, comfy bed to walk mostly and work up to running eventually). I just can't bear this endless stillness. Sometimes I dance to the light rail station. If you happen to see some crazy freak girl dancing down 17th street, say hi to me, or maybe give me a dollar.