The following is a copy of a article that apeared in one of my local newspapers on April 4, 1998.
It was written by Frederick Niedner, at it deals with last weeks shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas.
What do you suppose Drew Golden and Mitchell Johnson expected to do after they felled as many
of their classmates and teachers as possible at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., last week?
Change the channel?
Switch the game cartridges?
Take off on some fantasy adventure like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?
Rivers of ink and a flood of tears have flowed in the aftermath of that unspeakably frightening
scenario which has again torn away any confidence that safe places still exist anywhere in this world.
But as yet there's no making sence of what transpired.
For some, especially those in Jonesboro, that may never happen. Family photos of the victims,
suspended forever in time at ages 11, 12, or 32, will serve as reminders that some things have no
discernible meaning.
Among a few certanties at this point is the legacy of terror this episode will leave in our
collective consciousness.
Our children surely aren't the first to grow up afraid. My generation learned to live with the
constant fear that Russians on another continent might rain nuclear missiles on us some night and we'd
never know what hit us. Our children will grow up wondering if a choirboy schoolmate will gun them
down during study hall. It's hard to say which is the more dreadful way to live.
When we need most urgently to seek the meaning admist a incomprehensible tragedy, we commonly set
our sorry stories next to some older, heavier narrative in which we've found deep meaning.
As the pastors of Jonesboro have buried young victims and consoled the survivors, we've caught
snippets of their efforts to intermingle stories.
With Christians poised to enter the week in which they commemorate the brutal death of the young Jesus,
some of Jesus' own words seemed to fit perfectly in the funeral sermon for Shannon Wright, the 32-year
-old teacher who saw bullets hitting around a student and thrust herself in front of the child.
"There is no greater love that that which lays down life for another."
Sacrifice. That's the meaning we can see in the way Shannon Wright died.
She will not watch her two-year-old boy grow up, nor will that toddler and his father find
comfort in her arms. But another youngster does have a life, though now as if she had two mothers.
Perhaps one day she'll have her own children, will all their lives both a gift from God and
preserved by another's blood.
Good Friday's story wasn't the only one played out last week in Jonesboro. Christians also found
themselves dragged back to the beginning of Jesus' story, to the unspeakable horror known as the
Slaughter of the Innocents.
In that story one child survives. All the other die by the sword, while two millennia of mothers'
lamentations burst forth in desolation.
The sole survivor returns to eat the food, drink the wine, learn the lessons, and tell the
stories his slain contemporaries never share.
But soon enough, says the Christian story, that survivor lays down his own life...
...for the perpetrators.
There's a piece of meaning we need to find in the here and now, and if not now, then at least
before it's too late.
Will some survivors of this massacre -and so far that's quiet a few of us- give his or hers
life to redeem the perpetrators?
It's too late to change the channel. But if we give our hearts to the challenge of redemtion,
perhaps our childrens' children won't have to watch this show anymore.
Ok...it's me again. I chose this story because it really pulled at my heart. I feel so bad
for everyone, in Jonesboro or not, I can't believe this happened.
It may seem like a rather deep thing to put on a Hanson fan page, but some things just need
to be dealt with no matter what else you're into.
Well, I don't want to keep you here forever, so go on and do something else! But just remember,
you can run, but you can't hide. Especially not from something like this.
One Way Out, But No Way To Forget
Leaving so soon?
Email: kai_yuria@hotmail.com
