Older than the Rockies

It's been a couple weeks since the massacre at Virginia Tech. A week full of life abundant with little time to reflect on what happened in Blacksburg. My organization celebrated its 40th anniversary, so pain was eased by the open bars of two major parties - a black tie event for the donors and happy hour saturated with the smell of humanity as hundreds of twenty somethings drank alcohol, watched the Yankee/Red Sox game and networked. Pain was also ignored by my activities. I watched a movie, I prayed, I talked with my girlfriend, I recruited for my program on Facebook and I helped lead the music at church (for the first time, which was something significant). Between work, revelry (and I submit, that this revelry was not unhealthy) and worship, I've had little time to reflect on the what happened in the town of my birth.

Whatever pain I have, it's relatively dull, especially when you compare it to the pain of any of the friends and relatives of the victims (or the perpetrator. Diana Butler Bass has this to say when we think about the murderer's mother, who was reportedly hospitalized with shock: http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/godspolitics/2007/04/diana-butler-bass-silence-of-murderers.html). My cousin, who I haven't seen in years, is a student at Virginia Tech, but he was not in the building when and where the violence took place. But Blacksburg his home to me, as much as anywhere else in the world. The pain I feel resembled the pain of a childhood house being burnt down. These things are not supposed to happen close to him. The mountains seem to nestle the town in the fall. When I was younger and living in Richmond, VA, my mother would be sure to drive us to visit Christiansburg, Blacksburg's university-less twin sister, just ten minutes away with the car, where my grandmother lived.

The Appalacians are older than the Rockies. Smaller but greener, less wild and more lively. It's a place of age for me. The house my mother grew up in is old; my grandmother was older. Both represented to me quaint pieces of Americana rarely seen. It is also a place of peace. There's something so comforting about mist resting on the shoulders and sleeping mountains. When I was younger, we would stay with my grandmother at Easter time. I would get up early, and Gramma and I would have blessed moments in the kitchen. She would strain my orange juice and put charred pieces of bacon on paper towels that covered her counter-tops. I would sit under my picture and talk to her. We would both listen to the birds. The first birds singing in the spring remained a thrill to my grandmother throughout her 96 years.

Yet, in the fall, the peace would be interrupted for celebration. As if sensing that the harvest was near, the trees would light on fire. Drive over the Blue Mountain parkway in the fall and try not to be amazed by the sea of orange, red and gold. Watch the old mountains dance like my grandmother must have at the barn dances she would describe to me. Old fiddlers and banjoers in worn clothes would accompany the merriment, fingers and wrists rushing to outrun the approaching winter. Thanksgiving, again with Gramma, would end the merriment. Satisfied with the feast, the leaves would drop to the ground, and naked trees would wait for Christmas and springtime.

Virginia Tech belongs in this picture. Grey is a dull color outside of Blacksburg. But it decorates the mountains beautifully, perfectly complimenting every season. The grey "Hokie stones" (http://www.vt.edu/about/documents/HokieStone.pdf) from which the buildings are made are unique to the region. It reminds me of an ancient castle on the Rhine, yet it is also uniquely American, something born in the hills of southwestern Virginia. A campus once for the army now hosts some of the most brilliant engineers in the nation. The football team ain't bad either.

This is my childhood. This was me playing a child-sized guitar with a worshipband in a lecture hall. This is a playground with a hill, a rock and an empty caboose. This is a row of pine trees which mark my own years. This is the beauty of mountains older than the Rockies. This is the part of me, the home and the peace, that was wounded that day. Completely insignificant compared to the lives lost. Yet, both peace, life and home will one day be restored. The peace of Appalachia is just a reflection of what that will be like.