Compassion

"A chilly emptiness in the water reflected the terrible emptiness in his soul."
-Siddhartha


A short post tonight. Maybe it will be eloquent in its brevity.

As I'm sure everyone knows, there was a particularly violent shooting at Virginia Tech last week. I'll spare you the details, as they're all on cnn. Something that touches me, though, is that it seems a very human reaction to feel empathy for those killed, and the families of those killed. But we're all very quick to forget (or scorn, as the case may be) the killer.

As detestable a thing it is that he did, he is no less a human being. In no way do I condone what he did, nor am I attempting to shift the blame away from him. But I cannot imagine the emotional or mental pain that he must have endured daily to have put him in such a place to kill 31 of his peers and teachers, as well as himself. It is very easy to point the finger, and say that this man alone was a monster and the only one responsible. But every one of us is a steward of this universe and there is not a single event that occurs, large or small, that we don't have a hand in. So as you keep the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting in your thoughts or prayers, consider numbering Cho Seung-Hui among them.