Turn it off today. Turn off CNN and Fox and MSNBC. Don’t go surfing for more information. Don’t listen to all the people talking. Don’t let the media do it for you.
There is this temptation with our saturated news to immerse yourself in it because immersion feels like action, immersion feels involvement, immersion feels like empathy. Watching sobbing students and parents and doctors somehow makes us feel closer to this tragedy. But there is also an enormous risk to it as well – that it paralyzes us, absorbs all of our time, and prevents us from doing the things that we need to do to help those we can impact – those who are around us.
As a news junkie this is something of a novel concept to me. But it is one that was encouraged by an email I got from a friend who runs a tutoring program. She wrote,
“So many are asking what can we do to stop the continued random acts of violence. There are no easy answers, but I say to all of you….. each time you bring yourself through the doors of Immaculate Conception Church, on a Tuesday night… even after a long and tiring day….. that hour and half you spend with a child or young person, is the best ammunition we have against the enemies continued attempts to rob us of precious lives. Every open book. Every math problem solved. Every paragraph read. Every checker game played… serves to keep our kids safe as we love and nurture them and prayerfully bring them to a place where they will never be the one with a gun in their hands. Instead they will spend their lives being agents of peace.”
Yet we can only do those things if we have time and the emotional and spiritual energy needed to give of ourselves. Surrounding ourselves with the unending symphony of horror around tragedies like this one a few hundred miles from me in Virginia robs us of that energy.
Please hear what I am not saying. I am not saying we should be indifferent. I am not saying we shouldn’t feel the horror of it. I am not saying we shouldn’t feel everything we are feeling. I am saying that the best way for us to do that is to do it through prayer, do it through loving those around us, do it by living and not by listening. Our compassion is not directly related to our consumption of news about an event. There is stuff that we can do today… let’s do it.
posted April 17, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Agreed. Since about 7pm yesterday, I have only briefly looked at a news site once for a quick update. The media I think tends to do a lot of re-tramatizing. Especially when they show and the tell the same things over & over for hours at a time. They are saying that this shooter was a “loner” So have a lot of the people who have committed mass killings (Columbine, Pearl, Jonesboro, etc.)…..makes me wonder what would have happened if they had a mentor, an older role model in their lives.There is definetly something we can do. We can reach out to that teenager, who now has no friends, and perhaps is slowing building up anger. It doesn’t take a lot of people. It would just take one person taking the time with just one other person.
posted April 17, 2007 at 7:21 pm
There are so few things appropriate to say about this. God is good. The world is cruel. I’m sorry. To fill the rest of the time on the air, there will be discussions of who didn’t do what, what the laws need to be, who’s responsible for them, etc. The extra talk just takes away from what’s important about what happened.
posted April 17, 2007 at 8:03 pm
David, I appreciate your comments. I do however think this deserves some attention: http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=12360 cheers, Paul
posted April 17, 2007 at 8:44 pm
VT Crises The VT Crises You have finally come full circle with the larger problem. The shooting at VT is an example of the overall much larger problem. This is a copy of an email I sent Fox News. This is now the last straw that must move the political law makers to amend the freedom of speech rights in this country. Simply the freedom of speech amendment should allow only legal expression of verbal speech and visual art. This is not censorship but the responsibility of our country to allow all forms as long as the expression falls into what the culture has determined as legal. Killing is not legal, adultery, assault, prostitution and pornography are examples of what is not legal etc. You have the opportunity to make this the headlines and change the moral compass of this country and the generations to come. This is why we have laws and this will has and should effect all forms of entertainment and forms of expression from this point on in our culture. All forms of illegal expression should be removed from all stores and venues immediately. This is our necessary action and responsibility to the freedoms that a democracy should reflect and guard for the protection of all. Please forward this to the President. Thanks, Obewan We will still have all the freedoms and the protections…the only change is that it must be with the parameters of the written laws now on the books…makes sense to me! — Obewan
posted April 18, 2007 at 5:45 am
All I can say to that last paragraph of Kuo’s is AMEN. In fact to the whole recommendation. I find I am better off without the media’s presentation of it. As always it is horribly skewed and also boring (HOW many times do I have to see that heavy set police office with the rifle or the swat guy with the bolt cutters?).
posted April 18, 2007 at 7:40 am
Children today are confused. Their parents attend churches,but all the kids hear at home is woes and hatred. Movie,and television are violent. The war report is violent. Dad own guns,and brag about them. So what can a child do today,when the message of hope is not lived out in the home in the USA. I agree, that to much of this rehashing is going to prod another copy cat,and bound us to an easy chair,wasting our time.
posted October 9, 2007 at 5:08 pm
The news in always slanted, some to the right and some to the left. We can get involved into this nations and world politics and conditions. We as the church are a minority according to Christ. We are on the narrow way, and few there will be to agree with us. Christ is coming soon, the world is falling apart, and I am looking for that blessed hope, the glorious appearing of the Great God, and my Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Titus 2.13 or close by.
Our nations is on a backslide. Our dollar is getting cheaper as we buy from Walmart. We are buying almost a trillion dollars worth of foreign goods that we sell to foreign nations. How long can this go, may be a week, maybe a month, and maybe a decade. But sooner or later the debt collectors from the foreign nations will be at Americas door.