Virginia Tech Slides

Eight days after the tragedy that struck Virginia Tech, I went there on a pilgrimage of sorts to offer support to a sister chapter of Orthodox Christian Fellowships. Over the two evenings I was there, I attended two OCF meetings and had dinner with the members of the chapter and the visiting clergy.

It was neat to go and visit another chapter and to connect with new people. But more than that, it was very touching to walk through the Squires Student Center and see banners from different schools with words of encouragement. At that time, the most distant schools I saw represented were Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, and University of Alaska, Anchorage.

Some of the messages were more like letters, going into detailed descriptions of sorrow and pain felt by the writers. The most moving ones were the simple statements. A few that I read said things like “Sorry for the pain” or “I’m praying for you.” One student from a school in Alaska who was probably 7 or 8 years old simply said “Jesus loves you.”

Another thing that really impacted me was the resolve demonstrated by the students whom I encountered. It seems to me that it would be easier to sit in the grief and just allow yourself to be eaten up by bitterness. A researcher named Dimos with whom I stayed while there read a quotation from a book, a quotation that he had read the night before the shooting. It was by a priest who was writing a letter to a monastic community he had helped established, and he told the nuns there to be careful and not let bitterness creep in their hearts, lest the paradise in their heart become a hell. “What a scary thought,” Dimos said, “that the world around you couldn’t just be hellish, but that Hell could actually reside in your in your heart.” The students had chosen to press on and avoid that very thing, and I admire them greatly for it.

To help them along, the national OCF office sent four clergy to administer crisis surveys and talk sessions to the group, as well as further one-on-one time as needed. Also, the first evening, they held a memorial service lead by Bishop Tomas of the Antiochian Archdiocese. One of the clergy present was Fr. Kevin Scherer, executive director of OCF. I was very privileged to be interviewed by him for Ancient Faith Radio regarding why I had traveled from Tennessee to VT. He’s a very caring man, and I’m very glad to have him at the helm of OCF, especially after seeing the response at Virginia Tech.

While in Blacksburg, Fr. Kevin took some pictures of various things around the campus. Below is a slideshow of his pictures (featuring a few night shots from yours truly). [Note: There are a few closeups of a paper in a ziplock. This is a poem, the text to which I will post later.]

All who lost their lives, may their memory be eternal!

~ by Jonathan on May 12, 2007.