April 23 2007

April 23, 2007--Robert Hidde's Monday Morning

No doubt the week began for you like it did for me—a full list of people I wanted to talk with, appointments to be kept, and opportunities to either seize or explore. Then the news from the campus of Virginia Tech University broke and for at least a few moments, none of those other “important” things seemed to matter very much.

I’m not planning to play amateur shrink—there’s been enough of that going on in the media—I bring it up because I’ve heard from several of you who wanted my take on the situation. Without wanting to appear either unsympathetic or too simplistic, I think the words of Albert Einstein best summarize my thoughts.

“The real problem” Einstein once wrote, “is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man.”

The readers I heard from and people I talked with as events unfolded throughout the week seemed to want to know how to best respond to such shocking events. First, we need to once again take Einstein’s view of the world to heart. There are evil people in the world.

Some fly airplanes into buildings, some blow up federal buildings, some shoot innocent students, others prey on children, still others rob and kill with no sense of remorse.

I heard several mental health “experts” discussing the mental state of the Tech shooter. A psychiatrist on the panel explained that mental problems don’t cause people to shoot others, they simply break down the inhibitions that keep them from acting on the (and he used the word “evil” that has been within them for years (no he wasn’t a fundamentalist Christian).

But, realizing that evil still exist isn’t enough. Our second response should be to put the evil into context with the good we can find in the world around us and draw inspiration from it. Goodness isn’t always touchy feely—good can also be defined as a willingness to do what we can for the sake of others.

I’m sure there are many stories of goodness—students helping others, etc. that can be told about that tragic day at Virginia Tech, but the story that epitomizes the ultimate goodness is that of Liviu Librescu, 76 a Holocaust survivor who was shot to death. According to students, Libresuc, an engineering and math lecturer barricaded the doorway of his Virginia Tech classroom with his own body and told his students to flee out the windows. He saved their lives at the cost of his own.

Third, we need to try to bring as much goodness into our world as we possibly can. That means we take time for people. It means that we really listen, really try to make a difference. Tell your family you love them and your co-workers you appreciate them. And never be afraid to stand for good in the face of evil!

At the end of a week that began with evil, my week ended with good—my new grandson, William Gregory visited from Dallas. As I held him I realized that I can’t always protect him from evil, but I can do my part to help make him good and thereby protect his young heart from evil.
Surely, we can all do that for those we love, can’t we?