Angst and Relief

Friday morning after the craziness that was the day that we all found out that Eve Carson, UNC Student Body President, had been killed, I was driving down to campus and I was frustrated. Let me count the ways:

1. We live in a world where 22-year-olds get shot to death.

2. The campus leadership has nothing more to offer (and indeed, nothing more that they COULD offer, even if they believed something more themselves) than "live the Carolina way."

3. The Christians on campus could offer something more from The Story of hope, redemption, healing, and forgiveness but:
a. when we do get a chance to speak, we often say something stupid or
b. when we get a chance we often duck the opportunity to speak altogether.

4. With Spring Break this week, we don't have a chance to offer a more large-scale response to the issues and questions that this whole thing raises but even if we did, I don't know that anyone would come.

Pastors after September 11th often say that their churches were packed-out. I don't know that crisis in my context (i.e. Bible-belt big state University) drives people to seek out answers from the Christian community.

There's probably a couple reasons for that: first, we don't have street-cred on campus; i.e. we don't have the trust built to engage at these levels. And second, students in the South think they already know what we'd say.

As I rehearsed these issues in my head on the way to campus, I was getting more and more worked up.

And then I started talking to people. I heard about Abby, who knew Eve Carson, and how she walked around in her grief offering to pray for others who were close to her...even those she didn't know particularly well. I talked with Calin who found himself talking with a confused and sad suite mate about the situation. He listened well, asked questions...and then shared some of his journey with this man who's talked off and on about faith issues with Calin before.

Just a couple of stories, but it was enough to rescue me from my death-spiral of pessimism. If that's what I'm hearing, there are probably dozens, maybe hundreds more stories that I'm not. The Lord is good to redeem tragedy. Even here at UNC. There's issues we need to work through (how to talk about hope in tragedy, gaining street cred) but the Lord is not limited by our issues. That's good news, a small ray of hope in the midst of this ongoing tragedy.