Can we learn from the Virginia Tech tragedy?

In the aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech on Monday, details of the history of Cho Seung-Hui are coming to light.

I can’t help but feel pity for Cho, as well as for the victims and their families. Please don’t mistake me - the murder of 32 people is certainly unjustifiable. But the investigation of Cho’s history has shown that he suffered harassment from his high school classmates and a measure of neglect and insensitivity from his teachers. A story from the newspapers yesterday, April 20, report that as a shy and quiet boy, he had been teased and pushed around by his classmates, starting as early as middle school.

Treatment like this by a person’s peers has been given a name - it’s called hazing. It tends to happen to people, especially young people, who aren’t like the whole of a group, whether they’re shy or just different. Often the quiet ones tend to take abuse and harassment and bottle it up for a time, not talking about it or dealing with it outwardly. Picture a bottle, then. It can only take so much being poured into it before it fills up and spills out over everything surrounding it. A human being, a human heart, is exactly the same way - for good or bad, a person can only hold in so much input from those around them, and once that person’s spirit is full, whatever has been poured into it will spill over. I think it’s a good but sometimes difficult lesson for all of us to have to learn and relearn.

Especially when such treatment from a person’s peers is negative, without someone to step in, the harassment can have explosive results. In reading the story in the paper yesterday, that’s why I felt sorry for Cho. Once upon a time, many years ago, he could have been me; by God’s grace, nothing serious ever happened, but it could have. In my experiences (only two that come to mind at the moment) from middle school and high school, a person gets picked on for so long or pushed so far, and then suddenly, they can be blinded by rage. The explosions of anger resulted in fistfights, but in either incident, I don’t remember taking a swing, just the beginning and the end. I’ve grown so much since then, and I’m very thankful that those incidents didn’t turn out as badly as they could have.

Imagine someone who takes neglect, harassment, and abuse nearly every day and continues to hold it in. Maybe they have a higher breaking point than others, or maybe they just keep trying to hold it in, to swallow what they’re given. That treatment can lodge in their hearts and over time begin to fester, to eat at their spirits like a cancer. How many times have we seen the results? Virginia Tech and Columbine come to mind, and there have been others. Some make the news, many don’t.

Again, I’m absolutely not justifying what can happen, by any means. Rather, I pray that these words can be a message to a lot of people. These words are meant for those people of any age that feel like they’re victims of the group - PLEASE find someone you trust and talk to them, let your feelings out before they eat you up. They’re meant for the people of any age that see the weird, quiet person that doesn’t talk much and nobody talks to - that person is as human as you are, and they have a heart that can either be built up or broken down, so even if you don’t talk to them, PLEASE be respectful, and who knows, they could be a friend if you give them a chance. These words are for teachers, counselors and administrators - if there’s a student or two in your class that doesn’t seem to feel comfortable in open participation, or if you see that they are often alone (or worse, are picked on by their peers), PLEASE extend a hand of kindness and compassion to help them; it may or may not be in your job description, but a little compassion can make a world of difference to someone who feels like an outsider.

I pray for God’s blessing and His healing hands to be on the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting and their families. I pray that those people may eventually find forgiveness for Cho. I pray that students and staff at schools everywhere may gain wisdom for the future, for potential disaster may be replaced with kindness and hope. In the name and power of Christ Jesus, amen.

God bless you.