Darkness Among Us

Here we find ourselves again.

Who would think that a night out at the premier of a long-awaited film could end so tragically? It is becoming too common of a question in our lifetime.

Who knew that another routine day in 1998 at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City could end with 168 dying from a terrorist bomb built and detonated by Americans?

Who knew that another day at Columbine High School could end so tragically where 12 people were killed and many others were injured?

Who knew that a bright, sunny, spring day would include airplanes flying into the twin towers in New York City as took place in 2001?

Who knew that a routine spring day on Virginia Tech’s campus would turn into a nightmare where a student shot and killed 32 from his campus?

Time after time our ordinary, normal, routine days are turned upside down by the horrific actions of others.

Immediately the media began coverage of the story, all trying to beat other outlets to the story. A common question early on was to discover the motivation behind what James Holmes had done. “We are trying to learn more about James Holmes so that we can get a better grasp on the motivation for this shooting,” is the way it was said, or written, in one outlet or another.

Really? Knowing his motivations would do what? Would it put our mind more at ease because we understood why someone would enter a theater after a movie had begun and start killing people? How can we understand his motivations anyway? All we can really do is make guesses, unless James Holmes himself tells us something. My experience tells me that his motivations will not make us feel any better.

Was he motivated by bullying as a child? Or by being an outsider? Or by voices that told him to do this? Or by his fascination with Batman movies? Or by some mental/psychological/emotional disorder? What satisfaction would that bring us? What would it resolve?

Anyone who would do what James Holmes did was not thinking clearly, or rationally. His psyche was in some way disturbed, off kilter.

Our hearts grieve over the senseless loss of life. I was moved by stories of the many who gave their lives to save the lives of loved ones when the incident occurred.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to be the parents of John Holmes. You love your son and raise him in a home where he is nurtured and loved. No parent ever imagines their child might do something like this. They are, no doubt, devastated. How do you continue to love and support your son after he has committed such a horrific crime? I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

These events remind us of the darkness that looms within us as human beings. The first family we meet in the Bible has one son who murders his brother. Cain murdered his brother, Abel, because he was jealous. Following that, the Bible is filled with one story after another of human darkness and evil.

We are capable of some pretty horrific acts.

And God loves us anyway.

So we pray: for the victim’s families, for the healing of survivors, for those who were in the theater and are traumatized by what took place, for the parents of James Holmes, and for James Holmes himself.

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