Mourning, Pianissimo

This is the third post commemorating the first anniversary of the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

The bodies aren’t yet cold.

Somber, subdued, meaningful and spiritual services have been replaced by dramatic and showy photogenic displays, perfect for evening news broadcasts. The question that begs an answer is clear. Why have public memorial events come to resemble rock concerts?

Is yelling GO HOKIES! really the best way to commemorate the tragedy at Virginia Tech? Is yelling Go HOKIES! about honoring the victims or is it a narcissistic expression of those who would take attention away from the victims and assume it for themselves?

It is true there are as many ways to mourn. Each of us come from a micro community that have unique mourning traditions. We find comfort in the familiar, surrounded by that community that knows us best- and the community that we claim as our own.

Catholics, Anglican, Jews, Methodists, Buddhists and Baptists all have traditions and rites that are beautiful and meaningful, traditions that dwell on life and the loss of life. Others, who do not belong to a spiritual community have equally meaningful, respectful and reflective traditions.

It has been said that the tragic losses we endure can best be understood as losses in the seats that compromise the symphony that is life. Just as new life adds to that symphony, loss detracts from the music we know. The tragic loss of life is not our cue to play our own music more loudly. We are meant to play pianissimo, gently- our orchestra has changed and we must respect that. We mourn by reflecting on the beautiful music and contributions to the symphony of life made by those that have left us. We play that music softly, allowing the now quiet and receding notes to enter our being.

We must recognize and acknowledge our unique individuality and group from from which each of us came forth. The students and Virginia Tech community would be brought even closer together, if each were to find comfort and solace in the quiet, comforting and familiar traditions and community they know best. In the end, our most meaningful expressions of both joy and sorrow are always found close to home, within the family and community that we call ‘home.’ A few months or even years on a transient college campus cannot, no matter how much the illusory and superficial college ‘family’ says otherwise.

The students and Virginia Tech community have suffered a terrible loss. They should come together of course, in humility rather than in narcissism. Political Correctness aside, that shared bond would be stronger if each member of the Virginia Tech community were to have mourned and memorialized their loss in their own faiths and traditions.

“Go Hokies!” is about as antithetical to playing pianissimo and reflecting on the lives lost as it gets.

For another sober and thoughtful look at the events at Virginia Tech, see Shrinkwrapped’s We’re All First Responders Now.

Loss, Lessons And Life

This is the second post commemorating the first anniversary of the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

Loss, Lessons And Life

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech tragedy, a small congregation of mothers and fathers will have joined the select chorus and community that have buried their own children.

That club is an exclusive club. It seeks no new members. The club prays fervently that it die off, though in the heart of hearts of each member, they know better. With each new member, old wounds are reopened, and the heart ache that never really goes away, overwhelms again.

Every parent that has ever had to bury a child has looked heavenward and cried out, ‘Why has Thou abandoned me?

Beautiful words, poetic words and religious words cannot convey the very real despair the loss of a child entails. We look for and seek shelter in those beautiful words, poetic words and religious words, because we cannot bear to hear the cold, bitter and anguished voice of a childless mother. Dymphna’s words, written in the voice of a whisper, are thunderous. They thrust a dagger into the deepest recesses of our hearts.

When a husband or wife dies, we call the surviving partner the widow or widower. Why do you think it is that there is no one word to describe our condition…? Mother-of-a-dead-child is the best we can do? The lack of a name gives you some inkling how much our culture avoids the knowledge of this sorrow. If we named it we’d have some power over it. But the condition you and I share is unnamed because since time immemorial parents have dreaded this loss. It is the worst. There is nothing else that can be done to us. A motherless child is a pitiful creature and carries a life-long emptiness he or she tries to fill with other grown-ups. A childless mother is a crazy person and nothing can fill the hole, not if she had a baby a year for the rest of her life.

Do you have other children? I have three. And when people ask me, pleasantly, “how many children do you have?” I look at them blankly. It is all I can do to not to run screaming from the room.

No one can read those words and not be moved to tears or feelings of despair.

As we read about or think of parents like Dymphna and The Baron, each of us says, ‘there but for the Grace of God go I.‘ That is true of course, but that truth isn’t a cause for joy, because the loss of a child- anyones child- takes it’s toll on each of us. The difference is that who have lost a child never again experience real sunlight. Their world is dimmer place.

As time goes on, we shake our fists in anger, rage and exhaustion. We want to know ‘why’? We need to be able to make sense out of the chaos. There is that part of us that needs to look into the mind of the God that allowed this to happen. There is a part of us that does not want to forgive Him until He can justify to our satisfaction, the profound loss.

God never answers us directly.

Some of the answers we seek come in small measure. There is a message to be learned from the Holocaust survivor that held the doors the shut so that his students might escape- and live.

The professor that lived- who had every right to live- died doing what he could not do in the terrible times through which he lived. He saved the lives of children.

The last moments on this earth of the man who survived the Holocaust, and carried the burden for decades of unspoken horrors and loss, were spent saving children. That was his reflexive reaction. He would not bear witness to any more deaths. He had seen enough of that. He was to leave this world as someone who gave life.

There are many lessons to be learned here, some obvious, some more sublime. For each of us, the lessons are uniquely our own, lessons that only each of us can relate to, in our heart of hearts.

The losses and lessons do not lesson the tragedies, nor do they make us more spiritual. The struggle to find meaning in the chaos is only highlighted and made more acute. We wrote

God treasures our spiritual achievements. He treasures our failures along the way even more, because in facing and overcoming our failures, we have shown that we are indeed worthy of the humanity he has bestowed upon us. We are not meant to be perfect in our struggle and search for meaning and faith- we are meant to overcome the limitations, imperfections and obstacles along the way.

Today and for many days to come, many of us will feel lost and alone. We will be enraged and angry. ‘In the course of time and long after we are gone, others will withstand and suffer the same agonies.’ Our lives and the lives of those who have suffered the loss we cannot even imagine, will bear witness to the lessons we have learned. We can pass on what we have learned or we can retreat into ourselves.

We wrote,

There are no atheists in a foxhole, the saying goes.

Of course, there are all kinds of foxholes in life. One needn’t be a soldier to seek out a place where we can retreat into and hope (and pray!) for all the comforts and security we desperately seek when things start going awry.

It is also true that when we are most vulnerable, we are also most aware of the sufferings of others. Every singular tragedy is another link in the chain of almost unbearable pain and senseless loss from which each and every one of us will experience. There is no escape from that truth and there is no avoiding those realities.

Every single moment of every single day, somewhere in this world, many are enduring the most profound pain, sense of loss or feeling of hopelessness. How do respond to that suffering? How can we make sense of the suffering of those forgotten souls of the past?

Why do bad things happen to good people? That question is forever repeated because it is a timeless question. When faced with the tragedies we all must endure, for a few moments we share a collective memory of loss, of the pain of loss from all deaths, from the onset of time. First, we think back to grandparents, great grandparents and all the forgotten generations that preceded them. Then we realize, in our own humility, the devastations that loss and tragedy have had on all mankind.

It is usually at that point that we cry out to God. We ask that He show Himself. We ask that He comfort us and we ask that He not abandon us.

Of course, we never make those requests when things are going well. Often, we regard our most fulfilling awareness and ‘intimate’ exchanges with God as a result of seeing great beauty and natural wonder. That of course, makes ‘seeing’ God a very easy proposition.

The Old Testament story of Moses and the burning bush is instructive.

Moses does not see God in natural setting of beauty or glory, but rather, in a little scrub brush- hardly inspiring. Scripture notes that Moses ‘hid his face’ from God. Moses saw God’s glory in the lowly burning bush and was aware of His Majesty. God does not hide His presence.

God says to Moses,

“I have indeed seen the suffering of My people…I have heard how they cry out”

God’s exchange with Moses takes place in a burning thorn-bush because God heard and knew the suffering of His people. God did not appear to Moses in a lush forest or other place of natural beauty, because God wanted Moses to understand that He not only knew the suffering, but heard, felt and shared that suffering as well.

It is easy to see the beauty of our spouses, children and loved ones when they are healthy, charming and well dressed. It is not always so easy to see their beauty and uniqueness when that is not the case.

It is also true that sometimes, a person’s real inner beauty and strength are revealed when they face adversity. There are mothers and fathers that marvel at a child’s strength through a debilitating illness. What parent has not secretly proposed to God that they, and not their child, be stricken or afflicted? What parent has not agonized over the trials and tribulations that each child must endure at each and every stage of their lives?

There are husbands who see their wives in a way they had not understood, as those women fight cancers that are unique to their gender and impact how they see themselves as women. Those men come to see a beauty and dignity they had never known and marvel in a stricken spouse’s concern for them and their family. There are wives who have heard grown men, weakened by pain and despair, often in inarticulate and fumbling words that are nothing less than the sweetest poetry, profess their love and appreciation for the wives and family that have nurtured them.

It is at those times we see the real beauty of those who we love and those who love us. It is at those times that we come to understand the kind of love that is real commitment and loyalty.

God no more abandons us in our pain anymore than we abandon our loved ones in their pain and suffering.

Pain, fear and suffering are all a part of what it means to be a part of God’s creation.

First, we learn the easy lessons. To find God in nature, and beauty and music requires only minimal insight. As we progress through life, we learn to see God in the challenges and heartbreak that we all experience. That requires a more sophisticated set of skills. Finally, we learn to see God through loss and pain and suffering. That requires yet another set of skills- and that also requires the kind of humility learned from lessons of life.

In our times of pain, suffering and loss, God is not abandoning us. In fact, He is closer to us than ever, because pain and loss are the other side of the Creation coin. In the same way God oversaw Creation, He oversees loss.

We cannot claim to know God until we have experienced real fear, pain, loss and suffering. We cannot claim to be secure in our faith until the strength of that faith is tested and reaffirmed. We cannot claim to know God until we are comfortable in knowing that we are not all knowing.

We do not need to cry out to God when we are in pain or when we are suffering. God is already there, wanting us to grow into our fullest potential as Creation intended. In the same way that marriage, children and family expand our definitions and understanding of love, so too does pain, suffering and loss expand our definitions and understanding of life, meaning and purpose.

It also true that expanding our definitions and understanding of life does not mean we will fully come to understand God. We are human, with limitations. We are not always meant to understand the Godly ‘why’s ‘ of all pain, suffering, tragedies and even great loss. Sometimes we are meant only to cry, to hurt and suffer despair. Sometimes, those are the lessons that we must learn- and how to make the most of life for ourselves and to be an example to others. While we were ‘Created in God’s Image,’ we were never meant to be equal to God. That is why Moses ‘hid his face’- there were other, more important lessons in his exchange with God. He had to be that Moses, the human being, that God wanted him to be. It was the humility of Moses at the burning bush that became evident later on- ‘I am the servant of God, not the equal of God.’ It never occurred to Moses to be anything but the servant.

Each of us, at one time or another, is faced with our own ‘burning bush,’ that place not of profound beauty, but rather that place and time where fear, pain, suffering and the promise of God’s enduring love and commitment to us, converge. It is also true that to cry out to God is to cry out for peace, meaning and purpose.

Lord, hear our prayer.

For more thought’s on the tragedy, see Laurie Kendrick’s excellent About Virginia Tech.

See also Virginia Tech And The Pope.

Virginia Tech And The Pope

Today is the first anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre.

It is ironic (providential, perhaps?) that this first anniversary of that tragedy coincides with Pope Benedict’s visit to our nation. Even as we remember those lost in what was a senseless act, we are reminded that there there is light and salvation in faith. That is a lesson this intellectual and thoughtful Pontiff  teaches by way of example. Pope Benedict confronts darkness in the same way of his predecessor- head on. In addressing the sex scandals that have afflicted the church, the Anchoress notes:

Actually, although those who use these terrible scandals as a justification for unending hate will not acknowledge it, the church has taken serious action to prevent such abuses in the future, and the writers and watchdogs for these “zero-tolerance” policies are the laity, themselves, and the serious scrutiny is not limited to clergy; lay volunteers and ministers are all checked out and – at least in most diocese – must undergo a training session to spot and report anything that seems remotely suspicious to them.

The time for breast beating is long gone. The Church will act decisively to protect her most precious asset- her flock- and he seeks the same protection for those outside his church. Benedict XVI may lead the Roman Catholic Church but he serves all mankind with equal determination and love. Were only the leaders and future leaders of this nation were as devoted to the welfare of all our nation and all our citizens rather than their own self aggrandizement.

In another post that warmed the cockles of our hearts, the Anchoress nailed a real truth:

I don’t think the press realizes that their words will not match up with the pictures of this gentleman. The public will catch the cognitive dissonance before the press will realize that they’ve once again hurt their own credibility.

The Anchoress is covering the Pontiff’s visit with superb insight and nuance. Be sure to visit her blog often over the next few days.

The message the Pope brings above all is about commitment, fidelity and moral strengths.

It is with that in mind that we will republish some our posts on the anniversary of the Virginia Tech massacre. First up is

Why There Are Piles Of Dead Bodies At Virginia Tech

How is possible that at least one gunman shot and killed at least 22 people and wounded 21?

What is it about our culture and society that what was once thought unthinkable, has become an epidemic, with schools becoming killing fields?

Some will blame guns, but in truth, those who do that are only concerned about their own political agenda.

Switzerland and Israel are both countries with guns in every home, because of mandatory military service and reserve duty obligation In every household in those countries, there are guns. Nevertheless, the kind of gun violence we have just witnessed at Virgian Tech, at Columbine or other places, are unheard of in those places.

The escalation of gun violence and the kind of hate to leads to that kind of violence in this country is can be attributed to one cause and one cause alone.

When violence or threats of violence are considered legitimate forms of political or social expression, inevitably violence or threats of violence will manifest themselves.Terror has becomes an accepted form of political and social expression, that status granted by those who most profess to be non violent or peaceful.

The terror we see here has it’s origins in faraway places brought to our TV screens every day.

Those in this country who defend, apologize and legitimize the terror and evil committed elsewhere have facilitated the introduction of terror in this country. They will sooner defend the perpetration of evil and violence than those who would fight that evil ideology that embraces that kind of evil.

They are the most evil people, no matter how much they profess to ‘love peace.’ They are like whores, insisting that they and they alone are qualified to talk about family values.

No amount of dancing can change that reality.

From Loss, Lessons and Life:

It is easy to see the beauty of our spouses, children and loved ones when they are healthy, charming and well dressed. It is not always so easy to see their beauty and uniqueness when that is not the case.

It is also true that sometimes, a person’s real inner beauty and strength are revealed when they face adversity. There are mothers and fathers that marvel at a child’s strength through a debilitating illness. What parent has not secretly proposed to God that they, and not their child, be stricken or afflicted? What parent has not agonized over the trials and tribulations that each child must endure at each and every stage of their lives?

There are husbands who see their wives in a way they had not understood, as those women fight cancers that are unique to their gender and impact how they see themselves as women. Those men come to see a beauty and dignity they had never known and marvel in a stricken spouse’s concern for them and their family. There are wives who have heard grown men, weakened by pain and despair, often in inarticulate and fumbling words that are nothing less than the sweetest poetry, profess their love and appreciation for the wives and family that have nurtured them.

It is at those times we see the real beauty of those who we love and those who love us. It is at those times that we come to understand the kind of love that is real commitment and loyalty.

God no more abandons us in our pain anymore than we abandon our loved ones in their pain and suffering.

And so it is.

“Why the euro is unlikely to eclipse the dollar”

The Financial Times:

Judging from commentary by international economists, one would think that the dollar was on its deathbed. America’s financial crisis and the dollar’s depreciation are bringing us to a tipping point where the greenback will lose its international currency mantle to the euro. A few more losses on dollar investments, it is said, and central banks will learn to hold their reserves in euros. Other investors will follow. America’s “exorbitant privilege” will be no more.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, these reports of the dollar’s death are greatly exaggerated. They are based on a model of the demand for international reserves that does not apply to our 21st-century world.

The chief idea of this model is that international currency status is a source of network effects. Just as it pays to use the same computer software as other people in your network, it pays to use the same international currency as other official and private market participants.

Central banks thus find it attractive to hold dollars because other central banks hold dollars. With everyone doing likewise, the market in dollars is deep and liquid. Because trade is denominated in dollars, central banks find them convenient to smooth the balance of payments. This network externality is the source of the exorbitant privilege that the dollar has enjoyed for half a century.

This story would seem to explain how it was that the pound sterling remained the dominant reserve currency through the first half of the 20th century, long after Britain had lost its industrial, commercial and financial pre-eminence. Sterling was the incumbent. Central banks continued to hold the vast majority of their reserves in sterling because other central banks held the vast majority of their reserves in sterling. No one had an incentive to change their behaviour.

Of course, even where network externalities are powerful, lock-in is not for ever. As the US continued to grow, and the UK emerged from the second world war with a heavy debt and a sick economy, the tipping point was reached. Central banks fled en masse to the dollar. The pound was reduced to a shadow of its former self. The implication is that the dollar is courting a similar fate.

However trendy this conclusion, its logic is fundamentally flawed. Theoretical models of network externalities are in fact wholly inappropriate to our 21st-century world. The advantages to an individual central bank of holding its reserves in the same currency as other central banks range from slim to none. The real reason the dollar so dominated reserve holdings after the second world war was that only the US had liquid financial markets. Only the US market was free of capital controls. The dollar dominated foreign exchange reserves simply because there were no alternatives.

But this was a historical anomaly. In all other periods there have been multiple financial centres, and reserve currency status has been shared. While sterling was the leading reserve currency before 1913, it shared the market with the French franc and German mark. Our own research in central bank archives has shown that the dollar first overtook sterling as the leading reserve currency not in 1948 or even in 1938, as arguments emphasising inertia and lock-in would suggest, but already in 1924-1925. So much for the overwhelming advantages of incumbency.

While the dollar continued to gain ground in the second half of the 1920s, sterling still accounted for 40 per cent of global reserves in 1929. Like the 19th-century evidence, this contradicts the view that there is room for only one dominant reserve currency in central bank portfolios. So much for the idea of a “tipping point” from the dollar to the euro.

How did previous analysts get it wrong? Most obviously, they made the capital mistake of reasoning without the facts. They were also misled by the fact that the dollar essentially dis­appeared as a reserve currency in the wake of the Great Depression and the US financial crisis. Global foreign exchange reserves fell dramatically in the 1930s but dollar reserves fell most dramatically of all, allowing sterling to reclaim a diminished throne.

This is the most important lesson of history. The dollar lost its role as a reserve currency in the 1930s, albeit temporarily, because of disastrous mismanagement of the US economy. Equally disastrous mismanagement today would certainly cause the dollar to disappear from the international scene, leaving the euro as the only international currency standing. That said, no matter how difficult the current situation and how contentious the US policy response to the crisis could prove to be, we are still very far from that point.