A troubling thought

Rod, Thank you for this personal reflection. I think it helps those who suffer depression to know that other people do suffer from this, often in the college years, yet can come out of it and go on to live filling lives.
One big concern of mine is how difficult it is to find a good counselor. Perhaps this murderer was beyond the reach of even a good counselor's help but I think that so many others could be helped with the right person. Your experience adds to mine in leading me to fear that finding excellent, professional, religious counseling is like finding a needle in a haystack.

Our sessions ended abruptly after about a month when the therapist yelled at me for about an hour and told me I was tempting hell by having written critically of John Paul's handling of the sex-abuse scandal.

I am not a therapist. Needed to make that clear, because I am also not your usual layman. I've had formal training in crisis intervention, and about 500 hours of direct experience applying that training. The vast majority of that experience was what MJ describes, the "fairly easy problems". I agree with MJ that a person with a vocation of service, as we might reasonably expect from a priest, could well be effective with the sort of training I had. I've also had the dubious honor of being involved with three suicide situations, one of them in person. I also found myself in (what I consider) a worse situation than Cho's creative writing teacher found herself: listening on the phone while an anonymous young man talks about killing his father, no affect in his voice, and my mind in a panicked scramble trying to figure out even what town he was calling from. I had no reason to doubt and a few reasons to believe his intent. Trust me, no one, not even the degreed professionals, have the answer to every such situation. For those curious: no, I never learned the outcome of that man's situation. I was relieved to not see any newspaper stories that matched what I learned in that phone conversation.

Rod, please fix the link on "fruitful," the last word in my comment above. It's http://goodandhappy.typepad.com/g_as_in_good_h_as_in_happ/2006/06/pearls_among_th.html
Not the underlying Typepad text, as I mistakenly linked. If you can't, just delete it and I'll repost. Thanks. Dilys

Every person who has gone into a school and shot people has been on anti-depressants. Today's paper said that the guy who did the shooting was on anti-depressants. It makes you wonder...

I haven't been able to, and haven't really wanted to, say much of anything about this tragedy. But I must thank you for writing this. It's heartfelt, soul-searching, and rings true. Pray for everyone, mourn for everyone--do not withhold righteous judgment, but at the same time do not let judgment consume you, or excuse you from the command to reach out to and love all men, either. Again, thanks.

Your column reminds me of Hannah Arendt's famous remark about "the banality of evil". What she meant was that the frightening thing about the Holocaust was that it was carried out not by horrible monsters, but by ordinary people who got out of bed in the morning, kissed their spouses and children, and went to work, and came home for dinner in the evening. In other words, ordinary people, like any of us. I well understand what it is like to fight crushing depression. It is probably the main reason why I was never able to bring myself to finish my Ph.D. When I was younger, before I fought my own battle with depression, I would never understand suicide -- what could bring a person to want to kill himself. I remember going to see *Dead Poets' Society* and thinking that it fell flat for me -- I just couldn't understand why the student played by Robert Sean Leonard would kill himself. It just didn't resonate for me. Then I fought my own battle with depression, and found that I could understand things about other people that I had never been able to understand before.

Thanks for the candor. No matter the "comprehensive social services" society puts in place, only love has the power to heal the kind of brokeness we all know exists.
With no intent to malign Koreans (I love their historic dramas on my local PBS) but knowing about this TV series http://global.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/code-k/section-videos/pid-1003978119/ broadcast a decade or so ago may give some folks another angle on contemplating the tragedy: "Ma-Ri s life changed the minute she was born. The soul of an aborted child entered her body, and from that moment her life was no longer her own. Now co-existing in the same body as Ma-Ri, this paranormal phenomenon - called "M" - uses unimaginable powers to seek revenge against the world." How console a person who becomes aware of an aborted sibling? The topic's a taboo, right? What words does one use to express such sadness, in a world that condones the practice, robbing you of legitimacy in your sorrows?
Heavy stuff to ponder ...
But despair not, divine mercy can heal anger, Dr Fitzgibbons has some articles that point out some steps to consider if you are faced with someone suffering: "Angry students are likely to repress their feelings or act out, but there is another option -- One student refuses to do her work. Another lashes out at a teacher who tries to help. Still another comes to school with a gun, ready to exact revenge on someone who has mistreated him." http://catholiceducation.org/articles/education/ed0250.html Checklist for rating anger: http://catholiceducation.org/articles/parenting/pa0101.html Sorry for long post, but felt a responsibility to offer some possible actions not merely contemplations.

In the end, only kindness matters.... Jewel Thank you, Rod. I think of the man who asked his heavenly father to forgive them "because they know not what they do."

I can't help but be angry at Tom Cruise and the rest of his ilk who have so hard to diminish the value of mental health treatment and medicine. Perhaps if treatment of mental health problems was as socially acceptable at treatment for heart disease people like Cho would have more opportunities to get the help they need and countless lives could be saved.

Having had severe enduring suicidal ideation, having tried about a dozen meds and having gone through electric shock therapy, and having been rejected over and over again by certain young women and the in-crowd while growing up, I get what Rod and others here are saying. The thing is, sometimes I'm still experiencing satanic Schadenfreude when I think how I have 'made it' in life, while certain of those young women and members of the 'in-crowd' have been through rehab and remained stuck in our crappy hometown. Many of us, I guess, participate more on the peccator side of the equation than the iustus... What's truly, truly scary is how dark and violent young men in particular can get inside -- and then sometimes outside. I never considered hurting anyone but myself, but boy oh boy is it a black darkness certain of us young men can feel. Indescribable.

I'm reading Speaking of Faith by Krista Tippett, and the following quote seems particularly appropriate in this discussion. [Elie] Wiesel was visiting Berlin for the first time since the Holocaust as a guest of the German government. He had asked to meet with a group of young Germans. He was nervous about this meeting, and afterward he was visibly shaken. Together with another journalist, I sat with Wiesel and his wife. "I had never before considered," he said, "that it could be as painful to be a child of those who ran the camps as a child of those who died in them." In my life, in my training in crisis intervention, in my practical training in acting as a theater producer... as a lover, husband, father and sibling, the one common theme that redeems every situation is being able to walk, if only briefly, in the shoes of those we label "other". In all of that, the only situations I've not been able to redeem have been where I found it impossible, or adamantly refused, to step into those shoes.

What do you think about this?

Osvaldo, Thank you for your further post. The point where you and I disagree is in the mutual exclusivity of sympathy. I can, and do, offer that feeling to both sides. I do not fear that it cheapens one in favor of the other.

Rod
TMI dude. TMI. I wouldn't blame you (or criticize you one bit) if you deleted this post.
Franklin God love you, but you put way too much faith in worldly things and institutions. All the psychology, training, and degreed professional talk is actually kind of smothering and oppressive.

Rod, I think you would enjoy this: http://branthansen.typepad.com/letters_from_kamp_krusty/2007/04/im_a_traditiona.html

Osvaldo, The acronym YMMV covers it for both of us, methinks: your mileage may vary. You dislike the timing of it, and I can respect that. I submit, however, that standing beside the victims, and their survivors in particular, is a small step (nothing is ever easy) compared to the complex and difficult effort involved just starting with the notion that a murderer even deserves our pity, let alone sympathy. I'd like to encourage that more difficult effort; I certainly have no wish to discourage the support we surely must give to the victims of tragedy.

A wise man once said that universal sympathy was very much akin to universal neutrality. Osvaldo Mandias | 04.18.07 - 1:24 pm | # Care to enlighten the uninitiated among us as to the identity of this wise man?

A novelist, Mr. White, whose name I forget.

I feel nothing for Mr. Cho. I've tried to put myself in his place, and I can't get there. I would never kill indiscriminately to feed anger or hatred. It's true that many ordinary people participated in the Holocaust, but many people risked their lives to not participate and help the Jews. I've read that homicide is anger directed outward and suicide is anger directed inward. I can see the truth in that. I can put myself in the shoes of one who would commit suicide and feel great compassion. But I can't feel compassion for anyone who would give themselve license to do something like this unless they were having some sort of psychotic break-voices telling them to do it or something like that. I guess that Jesus can sort it out. It's not my job. I don't really care what Jesus has done with him. I trust that He's been fair. I'll save my prayers for the victims.

Continuing to ride the hobby horse I rode on the long thread Monday, The Lone Gunman , I see a danger not necessarily in understanding the forces that could drive someone to act as Cho did, but in allowing that understanding to influence our treatment of people like Cho. GK Chesterton s detective Fr. Brown was famous for saying that he could solve murders because as a Catholic priest he always could put himself inside the mind of a murderer, knowing in his bones that there but for the grace of God go I.
My concern is that we twist this sentiment in to passivity, in to a default position of not wanting to hurt people like Cho any further. This is a contributing factor to the larger issue I was trying to articulate yesterday, the seeming inability of too many young men to act like men. Mark Steyn puts it vastly better today than I could:
Nonetheless, it s deeply damaging to portray fit fully formed adults as children who need to be protected. We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself and, in a horrible world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others. I d prefer to say that the default position is a terrible enervating passivity. Murderous misfit loners are mercifully rare. But this awful corrosive passivity is far more pervasive, and, unlike the psycho killer, is an existential threat to a functioning society.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzEzYzQ0Y2MyZjNlNjY1ZTEzMTA0MGRmM2EyMTQ0NjY= We all wrestle with the same kind of demons Cho wrestled. There indeed but for the grace of God go I. But God forbid that ever stays my hand, even for a moment, in stopping a Cho s evil acts by whatever means and at whatever risk necessary. Bless, Doug

It's good to see that most commentators here are willing to make the struggle to understand the depressed. That does not excuse mass murder, by any means, but that kind of understanding might help us prevent further disasters. What the word "depressed" does not signify well is the anger that is so much a part of the condition. We pay a price for the lack of community and loneliness that is so much a part of our nation today. Depression is a big part of that price. Andrew Solomon, a sufferer, has written about it and argued eloquently that given its frequency and devastating nature, that we should take it as seriously as cancer: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/opinion/17solomon.html?ex=1321419600&en=4034c166dba57f68&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss Getting past the shame of being depressed and feeling like a loser could save many, many lives, especially from suicide.

Dear Question : Here s a quick response from the Orthodox Christian (and I believe Catholic) perspective, cribbed from a booklet called Prayer and the Departed Saints that is published by Conciliar Press, for whom I do work:
The concern which the Church has for those who have departed in Christ flows from the all-encompassing, never-ending love which she has for all her members those still alive on earth and those who have preceded us into the world beyond. One s eternal destiny whether one spends eternity in heaven or in hell is determined by how one believes and lives in this life. The Orthodox Church does not claim that prayers for someone who died in opposition to God can save that soul from hell, since the Scriptures clearly teach that there is no chance for repentance after death.
The Church still teaches that prayer for the dead in Christ is helpful to them. Why? Because in the Orthodox view, sanctification is seen not as a point-in-time occurrence, but as a process which never ends. As St. Paul says, And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into His likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit and For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God, the phrase which are saved in the original Greek is sozomenois, which means, literally, who are being saved. For this reason, Orthodox Christians look upon salvation itself as a dynamic process, a continual growth in holiness, purity, and closeness with God which continues even in heaven. The Church believes that our prayers for the departed can help them in this process of healing and purification.
As a contemporary British Orthodox theologian, Bishop Kallistos Ware, says, Just as Orthodox Christians here on earth pray for one another and ask for one another s prayers, so they pray also for the faithful departed and ask the faithful departed to pray for them. Death cannot sever the bond of mutual love which links the members of the Church together.
The issue is bound up deeply with core issues of doctrine concerning the communion of all the members of the Body of Christ and the state of the soul after death, which I won t even begin to address here. But the booklet, by David Ford, is a good place to start if you want to review the basic Orthodox Christian teachings on the subject. I suppose in my own mind, it comes down to a rather simple question: Would I continue to pray for my loved ones if we both standing in the presence of God after our deaths? I believe that it would be God s will for me to do so, so I should do so now as well. Bless, Doug

This may sound strange or off-topic, given the direction of many of the other comments here, but it is well within the "crunchy con" way of looking at the world (IMHO). Like many others, I have experienced this death-thrall following a particularly damaging break-up (although my soundtrack was Verdi's Otello...). For many years, I suffered from chronic depression and probably the only thing that stayed my hand was the experience of my cousin's suicide and how it utterly shattered my entire extended family. The stress and frustration of having young children often pushed me to my limits, though I can't say that I ever entertained thoughts of death then. But what has made my 20 years of depression disappear overnight was learning that what was causing it what what I was eating.
Once I managed to wean myself from the SAD (Standard American Diet), which is so full of toxins it's a miracle any of us remain marginally healthy or sane, my winter of depression became permanently spring. I still get stressed and frustrated sometimes, but I possess the ability to cope with it, free of drugs or therapy. So I've been there, done that. The drugs didn't work for me, and therapy was more annoying than helpful. But being healthy was all it took. That's why when I look at this situation, and I see the desperateness of someone like Cho, I don't feel sad. I feel angry, because there are so many people out there making a killing selling us "food" packed with garbage no living thing was ever intended to eat, and it's addictive to boot. Our society will continue to be haunted by these sorts of things as long as we are attached by an umbilical cord to our Big Gulps and Dunkin' Donuts and McVomit. Pardon my ranting. I support everyone's right to eat what they want. What I object to most strongly is the near-impossibility of making healthy choices unless you make all your own food. I do it because I have to. I would rather do it than go back to feeling the way I used to. When I look at this situation, I see through the veil. I know firsthand what this stuff is doing to us. Cho has exited his personal hell, stage left, and may or may not have entered a new one. God has prepared a place for him, we know not where. But God is also preparing a place for those who knowingly, even if indirectly, cause these torments. Perhaps we should pray for them. Rant finished. Thanks for hearing me out.

I do not find it difficult at all to understand the killer. I can, if I wish, conjure up the rage and the emptiness and the loneliness and the desire to lash out in a little gotterdamerung. But I do not wish to identify with his evil.
Its better for the soul to try and understand and love the slain and their relatives. I don't believe for a moment that any but actual saints can actually feel real compassion and real love for the killer and the killed at the same time. One exception may be people actually connected to the disaster. But not us.

Lori- don't confuse casue and effect. Of course, people who do something like this are on anti-depressants, they are suffering form depression and people with depression often take anti-depressants. i tdoesn't mean the anti-depressants cause the violent behavior. I think priests should NOT be involved in counseling people with pyschological troubles- that is for psychologists and psychiatrists and therapists. Priests should counsel about spiritual difficulties, and if it is truly psychological rather than spiritual, refer them to the apporiate person. I also think they should not counsel people on marital problems unless they have speicial training and experience to do this- they are not marital counselors.

Thomas, have you ever sat down with a close friend and listened supportively to his tale(s) of woe? Perhaps, as well, with an occasional comment or word of encouragement, solace, commiseration or humor? If you have, then you've "practiced" what we are talking about when we suggest that priests could offer "counseling". The whole point of the training (that which I undertook) is to permit the "counselor" to recognize the dividing line between being a good friend and getting the other person professional help.

"I can, if I wish, conjure up the rage and the emptiness and the loneliness and the desire to lash out in a little gotterdamerung." Please don't.

Osvaldo, you write: "I don't believe for a moment that any but actual saints can actually feel real compassion and real love for the killer and the killed at the same time. One exception may be people actually connected to the disaster. But not us." May I ask (respectfully and sincerely) why you think this? Is it because the crimes were so severe?
I ask this because in the case of lesser harm inflicted by one person upon another, most of us probably do find it possible to love and feel compassion for both the perpetrator and the victim. A parent, one of whose children has just (seriously) injured the other doesn't have to choose which child to love. When one of my friends has just (say) betrayed another one of my friends, I can love them both. (Of course, I would still be appalled by the betrayal, and I would take the side of the person who had been betrayed, and so on. But I can love and feel compassion for them both while I do that, can't I?) In the case of lesser crimes, most of us, probably, can love both both the injured and the injurer. These crimes are very much more horrible. Is that why you feel that love and compassion cannot simultaneously be felt for both? Or is there some other reason?
Best wishes, Beren

"There are some acts of empathy that are best left alone while we are in these weak, human vessels." Perhaps this is where we're missing each other. I don't think empathy means approval. I fact, I think empathy is entirely consistent with revulsion and rejection. I can feel in my heart (and reject) a kind of blind unreasoning anger, a hatred that might want to lash out at every one. But as I feel it (through empathy) I simultaneously reject it. And I think this is actually good.
If I recognize that people do feel such rage, and I empathize with them, I can reject that rage, and be (somewhat) protected against it when it something happens to me that threatens to provoke similar rage. It's a bit like a vaccination - getting a weaker version of it and confronting it, in order to be a safer when I have to face the real thing. But maybe this isn't what you mean by empathy? Certainly, if what you mean by empathy involves any shade of approval, I would agree with what you say about. But that's not how I understand the word. At any rate, love is the bit that I would insist on here, not empathy. Best wishes, Beren

Oh wait, it's that thing usually attributed to Philo of Alexandria: "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." Who knows who really said it?

A novelist, Mr. White, whose name I forget. Osvaldo Mandias OK! Thanks; I was just curious. As you can see from the above, I certainly quote from memory myself. I just thought that the way you phrased your post suggested that this was a quote that we should all recognize; evidently I let myself read too much into it.

As I read your post, I was reaffirmed in my spirituality. I believe in a God who lets us each decide who we really are and let those choices affect the rest of us in profound and growth-inducing ways. To those who say it's "wrong" to humanize Cho Seung Hui: You cannot have a hero without a villian, a mountain without a valley, a Mother Theresa without a Hitler - Life without death. It's this perfect dichotomy created by God, if you will, that gives life meaning, purpose, and momentum.
Think about it, do you know of anything without knowing of its opposite? Up, down, left, right? Light, dark, fast, slow? If the "bad" things/people/events did not occur, we'd find it very difficult to fully appreciate the "good" things/people/events. It would be a mistake, then, to curse the bad and bless the good. Whether you readily admit it or not, you absolutely wouldn't have viewed Mother Theresa or Gandhi as the epitome of selflessness and love if you hadn't ever experienced (through yourself or others) selfishness and hate (fear) - the things both of them devoted their lives against. I was on the verge of tears the whole day when I heard about the events at Virginia Tech. My sympathy goes to the families and friends left behind and that includes the murderer's family and friends who are also suffering a loss now and probably have much guilt to live with on top of it. They all deserve our prayers and thoughts.
Maybe now some of us will be willing to lift our eyes away from the endless pursuit of happiness through our own materialism and smile at someone today who needs it. Support them and love them. You may save a life... or even 30. And if that happens, wouldn't it be an incredible way to honor the lives of those who parished there this week? Tens of thousands of people will be affected by this but not everyone in a negative way. It could cause an estranged parent to contact a son or daughter, or someone to reach out to a friend in need, or a troubled person to seek help. These little individual stories make up the bigger story of our lives on this planet and they are intertwined together in a fabric that is nothing short of beautifully astounding. Sean

Beautiful thread. I must inject some postscript reality check from someone older with a steel trap memory. The most notable contribution made in the Carter years was arguably First Lady Rosalynn Carter's ongoing tireless campaign to create Mental Health clinics across the nation, to make help availability regional priorities. This was dismantled in record time in the early Reagan years. Then is when, for the first time in my entire American life,...including all those years I hitchhiked across the land and saw the underbelly of lost souls.... I or others too young to have seen the depression, saw homeless persons on our across-the-nation streets. I'm not being political here. I'm stating historical events...the clinics closed, the schitzophrenics went somehwere. Like Dallas. Like jail. Like the parks, under bridges. Before this, it was strictly a skid row in New York (or the likes) phenom.

Prison need not be a place where men and women learn how to become even worse men and women. Sometimes a person needs to be incarcerated for their actions.
We can still show comapssion anjd caring in the act of having them locked up. It should be a place where they and others can be saved. One thing about our culture of individualism, is that we are ceasing to care about the stranger, and especially those that are truly in need.

Mr Dreher, In recent days, the media has described the troubled mass murderer of Virginia Tech as a "loner." This characterization is likely inaccurate and maligns those who are indeed loners. The comparison seems to imply that those who are loners are more likely to commit murder on a grand scale. If so, it is at odds with gregarious extroverts like John Gacy, David Berkowitz, and Charles Manson who either appeared to enjoy media attention or generally were at ease in social situations. Cho isolated himself as much as possible from human contact, but this hardly meant that he was a "loner;" it is one symptom of many that indicated that he was severely disturbed.
Loners are merely introverted people who tend to become easily overwhelmed by excess stimulation, such as crowds, parties, etc. Whereas extroverts are energized by social situations and gatherings, introverts and loners find their energy sapped by them and gravitate toward more solitary activities.
It is my hope that in learning about Cho's severe mental illness that we for a more accurate picture of him rather than resorting to the label "loner," which maligns those who merely are comfortable with their solitude and would never harm a soul.

Red Cardigan -- Thanks!

[con't] I refer you and your readers to this Commonweal article: Vengeance Time.

Clare, Thanks for the links on forgiveness and dealing with anger. I have been looking for these types of resources.

Thank you, Doug (and others) who addressed my questions about praying for the dead. And this thread of comments is one of the reasons Rod's blog stands out. These are some of the most insightful and helpful comments I've ever read on any blog.

Hi, Clare Krishan. Today, CNN had an article that mentioned that Cho's aunt in S. Korea said that he had been diagnosed as a child with autism (after he had come to the US, diagnosis was probably around 1992 or 1993.) So this bears out what you said. Scott R., if you look at the accounts of various mass murders/shootings, many of the perpetrators were on anti-depressants: one of the Columbine killers was on Luvox. Jeff Weise in MN (Indian reservation) was on Prozac. Michael Kennedy (who killed police officers in Fairfax County) was on some kind of antidepressant, unspecified in the news articles I read. There are many more out there for the googling. I appreciate that these medications do help some people. But if these drugs do provoke violence and suicide in others, that needs to be examined and dealt with.

Excellent post, excellent thread. I'm not yet a parent, but I find myself agreeing with the comment about feeling for Cho's parents. Do you grieve? Do you rage? Do you simply hide in shame? How do you still love this person who you brought into the world, if at all? I can see Osvaldo's point, and it makes me wonder why I, too, have found myself thinking of the shooter as well as his victims. Perhaps part of it is that, while I cannot imagine killing a person, I have a much easier time envisioning myself as guilty than as innocent.

I'm inclined to call for a "truce" of some kind (I don't know if that's the right word). With any kind of negative and shocking events like this, I find thoughts racing through my mind that tend towards "explaining" the events in a way that validates my pre-existing views. And I notice that I'm hardly alone. Conservatives "explain" that the tragedy is caused by "liberal society refusing to act proactively against dangerous social deviants for fear of 'political incorrectness'". Liberals "explain" that the tragedy is caused by "a larger society that glorifies authoritarianism, warfare, and spontaneous violence as a solution to human problems, attitudes that individuals internalize in their turn and act upon in their own personal behavior." Gun control advocates seize on the events for obvious reasons, while proponents of gun ownership seize on them with the argument that if only the victims had been allowed and encouraged to arm themselves, the tragedy might have been averted. Maybe we all should be chastened, though, just for a moment, at the danger represented by this phenomenon, where extreme and tragic events could tend to reinforce our own vehemently held views and make us less receptive to thoughtfulness. Afterall, impulsive and/or self-absorbed behavior is itself all too often a precursor to violence...

Ignore the snide remarks, Rod. Take my tack, and refuse to do their thinking for them.

I can see Osvaldo's point, and it makes me wonder why I, too, have found myself thinking of the shooter as well as his victims. Perhaps part of it is that, while I cannot imagine killing a person, I have a much easier time envisioning myself as guilty than as innocent. What got me started thinking about this at all was waking up to do my morning prayers the other morning, praying for the victims and their families, then for Cho's parents, and then ... well, did I have it in me to pray for Cho's soul? No, but I did it anyway, in the same spirit of He who prayed, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." But I prayed through gritted teeth.

No, but I did it anyway, in the same spirit of He who prayed, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." Last year, I had a chat with a priest about someone who had committed a series of wrongs against me and my family, and I described the trouble I was having forgiving the person. The priest suggested that I jump to and reflect on the above-quoted line, uttered by Jesus on the cross, every time I say the Lord's Prayer and reach the petition about forgiveness. It was and still is great advice. And like Rod's (very flawed) therapist, the priest was giving this advice to me for me, not so much for the person I had to forgive. Another thing: not all of us are Pope John Paul II, who immediately and publicly offered forgiveness to his would-be assassin in 1981. For most of us it takes time, and the prayers have to be repeated. We ought not feel bad if we haven't yet forgiven Cho 100%, but are trying to anyway. May God walk with the families of those killed and injured.

Mr. Dreher, You are right and I apologize. I should have heeded the wise words with which you ended your post. Pax, Joshua Snyder