Author: Rev. Charles Pugh

I had the privilege of spending several hours on the Virginia Tech campus today.  Many in the entire Blacksburg, Virginia community and others who are a part of the Hokie Nation spent the day reflecting and remembering.  On campus, the day began with a 3.2 mile run in honor of the 32 victims.  A special memorial service took place at noon and the day ended with a candlelight vigil.  Just as I did last year (c.f. My 04-16-08 Blog and the poem coming from that day [under the poems tab] ), I learned from my time on campus.  If we are to truly prevail, we must indeed learn how to run, walk and talk…

It was great that over 4,300 participated in the inaugural Run For Remembrance.  Life is certainly as a race we must run and in order to finish well, we must be learning along the way (c.f. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27).  The key to the race is running with purpose and discipline and staying on the right path to the finish.  What about that one on 04-16-07 who was running the wrong way?  As difficult as this is, could there not have been some way to reflect and learn from that life?  That brings me to my next point—walking.

What if there was an end to this Run For Remembrance where each participant simply walked another tenth of a mile?  That would at least acknowledge that troubled life which brought about this terrible tragedy!  What if we all took more time to walk outside of our own circle of friends and familiarity and reached out to the others around us?  As I walked alone all over the campus, I reflected on how it would be better if we were learning to walk up to others and greet them or even try to talk with them.  That brings me to my last point—talking.

While walking around alone I did take the initiative to greet and even talk with some that I saw who were also alone.  Why weren’t more doing this?  Maybe some were, but I did not observe anyone else doing this.  Most were just talking with the friends or group they were with.  During my entire time on campus around hundreds of other people, while waiting alone at the memorials, walking around the chapel or noting remembrances in the student center, not one person greeted me or initiated talking with me.  Had I not initiated greeting others and even some conversations with others, there would not have been one person talking with me all day long.  Do you see what we need to learn there?

Friend, we should not honor the life of Seung-Hui Cho in the same way that we do the 32 victims, yet we dare not ignore the lessons needing to be learned through his life too.  As you run the race of your life, please reach out to or at least acknowledge the others around you (especially if they are running the wrong way or off the path).  As you are walking around take the time to walk up to someone who is alone.  Talk with others and even those outside of your own circle of friends.  If we seek to communicate with others we will more readily recognize those who are struggling and be able to help encourage them and possibly even prevent another tragedy.

Please learn from my own experience today and even last year and reach out to and serve others you find along the pathway of your life.  You may wish to look at my “Learn to Prevail: 32 to 33” poem written last year (under the poems tab).  Yes, there were many doing much good today and supporting their friends, but what about the needs of those around us that we don’t know or even those who are our enemies?  Consider the challenging words of Jesus in Matthew 5:44:

“But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.”

Learn better how to run, walk and talk so that you and each of us can truly prevail!

Believe it or not J this blog article will address the foundational issue to everything!  Does that sound like a stretch?  In order to understand all I am writing about on this website and in order to look beyond your own limited sight and better understand the world we live in, you must come to understand belief.  Please read on and try to follow my reasoning here.  This article is indeed quite appropriate on this most significant historical day—Easter or Resurrection Sunday! . . .

What does it mean to believe?  What exactly is faith anyway?  This subject is so important, that I will be addressing it more with the last of my Top Ten Lessons (tabbed above): “Hope in Faith.”  Well, faith or belief is almost better understood by knowing what it is not.  My 11-13-08 Blog:  “Faith and Tragedy” also discusses this.  Simply put, faith is not sight.  It is not directly observable or else it would be sight.  It is trust, it is belief.  To NOT Believe is to isolate yourself to only your limited thinking and observation and is indeed a Tragedy.

None of us knows everything or is in every place at the same time.  Since reality proves that we cannot comprehend every bit of information that is and since we are limited to wherever our body is located, it is simply impossible for us to objectively evaluate or review the reality of everything that is happening in all places (see also my discussion in the 05-23-08 Blog, “THINKING What?”).  This does not make the reality of what is happening in any given place less objective; it just means that we do not have the ability to observe it all at the same time with our limited sight.  If we could, then we would be GOD.  Foundationally, our limitations mean that each one of us must, to at least some degree, live by faith.

Now, the next question that comes is the nature or accuracy of our faith and how that corresponds to what reality is.  This is where it is important to KNOW, as much as you can know, WHAT you can trust and WHY you can trust it (again, you may want to review my related articles from May of ’08: “THINKING Why?” and “THINKING What?”).

Oh friend, you CANNOT ultimately trust in the ever changing opinions of man.  You CAN and should trust in the unchanging revelation of God!  His revelation is revealed in His Creation, in His Covenants (the Bible), and most importantly in the Person of JESUS CHRIST.  Jesus, as a human being, is how we can understand God, who is Spirit (c.f. John 4:24).  All the fullness of the essence of God dwells in Jesus (see Colossians 2:9).  You can trust in Jesus and you have good reason to do so because HE rose from the dead!  If you doubt that, then you need to take a closer look and study the Resurrection of Christ.  Many, even skeptics, have done so, and thus become believers in Jesus (there are many examples here, though Josh McDowell is one living example you may be familiar with).

Please take this day as you are reading this blog article and consider the Truth of what I am saying.  If you doubt, then study it out.  Your very life and even eternity depends on this.  The Apostle Paul said it best in 1 Corinthians 15:14:  “And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty.”

Please avoid the Tragedy of NOT Believing!

Closely related to my last blog article on the tragedy of not listening, comes this article on the Tragedy of NOT Looking.  If you happened to have watched the news over the past few days, you likely have seen footage of circumstances surrounding several additional shootings.  You may have seen pictures of the 3 policemen killed in Pittsburgh, or heard about the 4 who were just shot and killed in northern Alabama or even the 5 children in Washington State who were killed before the father shot himself.  Do you see a pattern here?  Do you see what is happening in many homes across our country?  Now, I do not intend to take this article and discuss what needs to change in our homes (Lesson #3 in my Top Ten [tabbed above] will discuss this further).  I do want to focus my attention here on sight and the tragedy that comes when we fail to look and thus see as we should.

Sight is arguably our most important sense.  It is usually what first captures our attention.   It is the best sense to spark our imagination and creativity.  It is often what drives our other senses and opinions.  Studies show that you remember more of what you see and hear verses something you only hear.  Certainly, we can survive without our eyesight, yet we must acknowledge how this would limit us in so many ways.

I often wonder how it is that people can see things and still not properly understand.  There is so much we can observe today and we are constantly bombarded with images and video of various things (c.f. also my 02-04-09 Blog:  “T.V. and Tragedy”).  This makes us more accountable.  The fact is, though, that just seeing something is not the same as looking at it.  Similar to the difference between hearing and listening is this difference between seeing and looking.  When you look at something, you are paying more attention to it; you are examining it and thinking about it further.  It is quite possible to see many things and yet never come to the point of looking so that you can understand and thus learn, grow and change accordingly.

Are you desensitized by all of the things that you see?  Do the images of all of these shootings and tragedies compel you to respond with proper action or do they more often lull you into a sense of complaining or worse yet, complacency?  Do the constant images of sexual situations and acts of violence keep you from looking at what effect this is having in our society?  Are you merely seeing these things and accepting them as reality or are you looking and understanding what needs to change?  Failing to look and examine what we see will only lead to tragedy.

Jesus Christ not only warned people to be certain they have ears that will hear (or pay attention by listening), He also warned us to have eyes to see—that is eyes that look and examine to remember what they see (c.f. Mark 8:18).  He even told the Laodicean Church to anoint their eyes with eye salve, so they could really look and see (c.f. Revelation 3:18).

Dear friend, are you looking to the One Who has perfect sight, understanding and vision?  Are you following His Word, which is His will for each of us to follow?  If you do not have this spiritual sight, then you are succumbing to the tragedy of NOT really Looking!

Consider and learn from the King James Version rendering of Proverbs 29:18:

“Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.”

I am compelled to write again today in response to recent news events, some of which you have likely heard about by now.  Last evening, there was a shooting just across from Radford University (leading to a campus lockdown) where one was shot to death and the gunman still at large.  Today, we hear of this shooting in Binghamton, New York (near campuses there too), where it is initially being reported that at least 13 have been killed in a hostage like situation.  Last week, there were 8 shot to death in a North Carolina nursing home massacre.  You may wish to also reference my 03-11-09 blog article about several other shootings in early March. (https://vtlessonstolearn.com/2009/03/11/shooting-rampage-tragedies-wake-up/).  What is going on in America?  Certainly, crimes take place every day in various locations, but why so many shootings and often multiple deaths?  Are we learning?  Are we listening?

How is it that you move from simply hearing information to actually listening and properly responding to it?  Listening, by definition, means that you are “hearing something with thoughtful attention.”  If there is an immediate danger around you, most likely you will be paying more attention for your own safety.  However, if you are merely reacting in fear or devastated and defeated by any tragedy (or any difficulty for that matter), you will be limited in what you can hear and likely unable to thoughtfully listen.   That becomes its own tragedy.  In fact, if we are not learning, changing and growing from the events in our lives (and particularly the tragedies), we have given in to the circumstances, given over to the control of others, or given up hope for the future.  We would then have succumbed to this tragedy of NOT listening.

Not listening means that more tragedy will likely come.  This is true in a broader sense as well as in particular details and situations.  It is also true that we need to be listening to the people around us, particularly those who are obviously struggling (you may wish to review my poem, “Learn to Prevail:  32 to 33,” which can be found at the tab above).  Personally, I am understanding something of the struggle to get people to listen.  I have found that there are many obstacles to really listening built into our culture and society.  In fact, there are obstacles keeping you from really listening to the most important information that you need to know and to which you must respond.

Dear friend, there is One Who is more than willing to listen to you, even if nobody else will.  He will not simply listen, though, if you come to Him with your own agenda.  Your Creator took the place of God’s wrath toward your sin and died for you.  He was buried and soon rose from the dead and He will be coming again soon.  Please be listening and please be ready to meet Him or else you will face His wrath and pure Justice!

Jesus Christ calls people to come to Him and learn from Him (see Matthew 11:28-30).  The LORD will hear the prayers of the righteous (see Psalm 34:15).  Jesus often spoke of the need to have ears to hear (that is, to listen and act upon) such as in Matthew 13:9 and 43.    Consider also what the LORD said to the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 33 and verse 3:

“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”

America, the world, and you dear reader, needs to be listening.  We can Learn to Prevail!

Today is a quite appropriate day to talk about foolishness.  After all, it is April 1^st, or what is commonly celebrated in many areas around the world as April Fool’s Day.  Regardless of how the particulars of this day originated, it is a day in which you might wish to be a bit more skeptical of things that people say or do.  Practical jokes are commonly excused or more tolerated today, which does make it more interesting.  Humor does have its place and is a very important part of life (see also my 07-03-08 Blog: “Humor Me” and/or the 12-05-08 Blog: “Humor, Humanity, and Tragedy”).  There is another point here, however, that I have alluded to often and it is The Tragedy of Foolishness.

In the process of raising my children (whom I deeply miss now due to my current, ongoing tragedy), I have often been reminded of and dealt with them through my understanding of an important distinction in behavior.  There are some actions and behaviors that they chose which were simply examples of a lack of knowledge, understanding, or what you might refer to as immaturity.  My wife and I referred to this as “childishness” and there would be little consequence to this beyond learning from what happened.  A marked difference was when they did something they were not supposed to do or failed to do something they were supposed to do.  We rightly referred to this as “foolishness” and there were consequences that came with foolish behavior.

We live in an information age!  Knowledge is abounding more and more.  Virginia Tech even prides itself as “a University putting knowledge to work.”  Technology and means of communication are ever improving.  You can not only phone someone around the world, you can even see them instantly through web cameras.  You can send instant messages to people around the world (as I was just doing) and now you can even tweet with people around the world on Twitter.   With all of this communication, information and knowledge comes responsibility (see my recent 03-21-09 Blog:  “The Tragedy with RESPONSIBILITY”).  We cannot be so quick to excuse any behavior as ignorant or uninformed.  There is also a coming accounting of it all!  Dear friend, it is utter foolishness to refuse to acknowledge the things we know to be true, even if we hope somehow they are not.  You cannot escape from reality or truth and it is foolish to ignore, fight, or even try to drown it away, as that only delays the inevitable accounting.

In fact, foolish behavior will feed on itself and this will even lead to tragedies (I refer to this often, such as in my 03-05-09 “Spring Break Tragedy” Blog).  If America continues to improperly acknowledge its rich heritage, it will crumble and fall and take much of the world with it.  All you need do to see this is to understand something of the current economic impact on each of us.  Wisdom is to properly apply knowledge and the Bible clearly teaches that “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (c.f. Proverbs 1:7) and the beginning of wisdom (c.f. Proverbs 9:10).  In fact, the Bible teaches us much about being wise in the world wherein we live.  To not follow the plain teachings of the Bible is foolishness!

The Bible also plainly describes the person who is a true fool, on April Fool’s Day or whenever:

“The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, They have done abominable works, There is none who does good.”

Friend, you had best be certain you have found forgiveness with God and are trusting in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ for your sins!  Otherwise, the tragedy of that foolishness is an eternity of torment in a God-less lake of fire, far worse than any tragedy or self-described “hell” you may face in this life.