I’ve had many people comment that they are struggling with emotional aftermath from the tragedy at Virginia Tech.
In finding my own peace of mind about the crisis I go to the Christ consciousness of Truth that lifts human thought out of the temporal scene of evil, hate and anger to the heavenly consciousness of omnipresent Love.
In predicting the end of the world,–or scientifically rendered, the end of material sense,–Jesus Christ prophesied,
“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.”
Jesus did not end his prophecy on a dismal note, but said those who “…endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”
So the question arises, How do we “endure unto the end?”
Mary Baker Eddy, a powerhouse spiritual thinker in her own right, explains what Jesus meant when she wrote,
“This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace.”
We have a choice as to which side of the conflict we stand on: on the side of “discord and dismay,” or on the side of “Science and peace.”
I, for one, choose to stand on the side of Science and peace. It’s the only helpful way I know to bring healing to the dismay.
People stricken by loss and grief don’t need more fear and distress heaped upon their perspective. They need comfort. They need hope. They need help and healing, and it’s the spiritually enlightened consciousness of Love’s ever-presence that is going to help them the most.
To make a positive contribution, we need to maintain a healing state of thought that dispels the darkness of remorse and angst and shines the light of hope and peace.
Jesus said, “…see that ye be not troubled,” by the conflicts that arise in this world. They are the clash of good versus evil, and until humanity loses all faith in evil, they will continue.
So, while the conflict of good vs. evil is worked out, and until good is seen as reigning triumphant, I seek a path that resolves the conflict in the favor of goodness and love. This path, I believe to be the path of Love.
The rampages of evil cannot be ignored, wished away, or mindlessly cast aside as unreal while they are running roughshod over the rights of humanity. They must be addressed head-on and proven unreal and powerless by dismantling their claims and eliminating their influence. But they cannot be built up into unconquerable monstrosities either. The evil must be addressed and conquered, and it’s the way of Love that gains the victory.
I pray that the impressive aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy is not a darker cloud of despair cast over the human outlook, but an increased commitment amongst mankind to love one another so that similar tragedies do not occur in the future.
We can help one another, and if there’s a sign of mental trouble in a neighbor that is foreboding, we can take time out to heal that distrubance and prevent it from multiplying into something larger.
“…see that ye be not troubled,” Jesus counseled.
Don’t let evil take over your perspective. We can side with Love, with peace and harmony and be a healing influence in a world that needs to feel more of Love’s comforting presence. It’s the healing way…
Evan, Very well said. I found it ironic that this event occurred on National Holocaust Day. Our hometown had a famous speaker ( a Holocaust survivor whose name escapes me) who my wife went to see. She spoke frequently of the victims of the shooting and the need for Love and Forgiveness. It was very moving my wife said. At the same time the speaker was unaware of the heroic deed the Professor who also was a Holocaust survivor in sacrificing his own life in saving his students. These examples are what Christ Jesus has taught us,the ability to rise above “mortal sense” to face evil and destroy it. Remember, the physical body is not Life and as Mrs. Eddy says throughout Science and Health, we are involved in a great battle, in which the Battle Ax of Love must be swung to the root of belief in evil/error/hypnotism. Human suffering will continue until we “wake up” to the fact that God doesn’t know suffering. Human laws such as harder access to guns, video game restrictions etc. will help but what it will take is all of us realizing in our own thought the TOTAL LIE this evil is. I am encouraged that we are seeing more and more good everyday and even though it looks like the “end of days’ sometimes, it is actually evil fleeing, responding to its own nothingness. We need to stay awake and as we “see” this evil in our own lives, face it down and destroy it. There is no other way.
It’s hard to believe that evil has no power, and God is all powerful. Surely, we should be able to see it and demonstrate it in our experience. I feel sorry for the shooter who felt so unloved and isolated that he had to do this thing. I feel grieved for all the parents who’s children were murdered so senselessly. Surely it must feel like a dream, unreal to lose your child that way.
It’s hard not to fall into a depression. It’s not just this, but the whole world embroiled in warfare. Greed is rampant, unbelievable suffering, hunger, homelessness. Atheist will say, how can a God exist in circumstances like this? Sometimes I have no answer that sounds credible.
To anon above,
Yes, I know what you mean. In the mindset that evil is real, it appears very real. That’s why Christ came to the world, to show us a path out. God is not in the evil. God is in the good, and as we walk down the path of Christ, Truth, we find more of the good that helps us conquer the evil.
We read all kinds of Christian Science articles that says God will protect us, and how we are untouched by evil or harm. What do we say to our Sunday School children then, who see a definite contradiction: Why didn’t God protect those students?!? And what makes us different that it would never happen to us? What’s the purpose of saying evil is unreal, if it appears real? There’s absolutely no comfort in that.
I know this doesn’t sound like much but to me a remarkable thing happened on virtually all the network and cable news channels last night (4-19-07.)The families of the murdered students protested so loudly about airing the “manifesto”, video tape etc. of the murderer that he was not even seen or really mentioned on the news. The talking heads were all saying how this is great because it doesn’t give power to the killer-who wanted to be famous, or encourage others to act out. (The Monitor, as is it’s policy, has not mentioned the incident at all) This is encouraging even to a small degree that people are starting to wake up to the hatred, loneliness and pain that seems to be our reality. From Don Imus’ firing to wanting to withdraw from Iraq, I see signs, although small and maybe not very significant, they are there. I am convinced that as we pray each day for the world as part of our daily prayer, this “mist” of evil will continue to dissipate. We must never give up. Evil wants us to be sad, to give in to the emotion of grief, to defeat us. By not airing the evil on TV we choke it out. God bless those parents!!!!!!
To anon 2 comments above,
What do we tell our children about evil when it appears so real? I tell them that God is more real and more powerful. That the goodness and love of God is available for us to conquer evil, and that each of us has a responsibility to do this for the benefit of ourselves and humanity.
God is not in the evil. God is in the good.
In this material world, evil appears very real and powerful, but Christ came to show us a way out. As we follow that path, we find our way out of the evil mindset into a heavenly consciousness where evil does not exist.
In the “big picture,” God did save the victims of the Tech massacre. Those individuals are alive and well. They are not dead. We cannot see them with the human eye, but they are very much alive, well, making plans and moving ahead. They were saved. Only the concept of time and physical locality makes this truth difficult to grasp. But through increased spiritual understanding, as we see through the veil of evil and matter, we see more clearly that we all live in Mind where there is no shooting and no killing. Life is eternal, Love reigns supreme, and there is no danger of loss.
That is such a comforting thought. I just wish we could put the scientific method to it; to be able to test it and know for sure that what you say is true: that they are really going on and safe and demonstrating life.
I know this is soooo politically incorrect, but I feel so sorrow for the perpetrator. Everyone wants to blot him out like he is a nobody and shouldn’t be recognized, but I grieve for a person that has felt so much lonliness and has been tormented by cruelty and unkindness and has obviously suffered for a long time. Am I the only one?
To above,
I agree that everyone needs to be loved, including perpetrators and potential perpetrators. This is the only way we can stamp out the mentality that feels desperate and takes such destructive action.
It’s interesting to me that we praised the actions of the Amish community in their forgiveness of the one who took innocent lives. We admired their forgiveness in action when they went to the home of the murderer’s family to comfort them. We talked about the importance of remembering that while we don’t forgive the evil act we do separate the evil act from the person and forgive the person because if evil can’t be separated from the person there is no hope for mankind and no hope for healing.
Now we have an opportunity to put that stunning example of forgiveness into action we have all but turned away from it and back to despair and hatred. How do we decide what is forgivable? Is 5 a forgivable number but not 33? What about 3000 on September 11? What about 1 — a disturbed disenfranchised child that walked among us for 23 years then self-destructed?
The Amish example must have taught me the lesson of forgiveness because I noticed my reaction to this situation was strikingly different. I turned to prayer instead of CNN and have been able to find love and compassion for ALL involved that previously lacked in my thinking. It quelled my fear that a bigger version of evil was somehow more real and unhealable than a small version of evil. It gave me hope instead of terror.
There are more unhappy fringe children out there. If we can;t stand with the power of good and find the love and compassion within us to face down and destroy the evil and save the child — we’re in for a bumpy ride.
Evan, thanks for your constant effort to lift thought above what we see happening in our lives and our world.
I think the only way that we can truly defeat evil and see it as powerless is to include the perpetrator in our prayers and embrace him. Thus, we demonstrate that evil is no person , place or thing, but something that would deceive us to believe it was in a person. If this thought is accepted, than we have given reality to unreality, and our hatred will perpetuate, not halt agressive evil. Evil smiles as we shun the perpetrator and rise up against him. He too, is a victim of error, evil.Jesus was a friend of the friendless. If the perpetrator had felt but a tinge of genuine love, God’s love, he would not have taken such actions. As a society, we should work to eradicate the sources where evil finds easy breeding ground; despair, loneliness, greed, isolation. Love is the answer!
Agreed. Amen!!
I’m sure everyone is done with this topic but I wanted to add one little thing. When the “identities” of the victims and shooter were revealed – I felt an immediate and strong reaction that names, hometowns, majors, ethnicities, etc. were not their identities at all. Instead, I turned off the TV and knew that only God, Mind can know the true identity of each of His precious children. Their Souls, or identities, are in and of God. Created, maintained and loved only by God (and through His reflections). If this is really true…we are really, really safe. No matter what it looks like on the news…the only real fact is that we are loved and kept by our Father/Mother.