The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/27/09 Section: Opinions

MARC McAFEE [Click to enlarge]

The pages of today's paper are filled with details of what happened Saturday afternoon.

But if you're looking for reasons why it happened, you'll probably leave disappointed. Sure, there will be rumors of relationship troubles. The police will eventually make public the motive for the killings. Yet somehow, a simple motive never seems to match the severity of crimes like these. It only leads people to ask that same, three-lettered question: "Why?"

As I write this, there will be parents trying to explain things to their children and pastors attempting to explain God's will to their congregations. There will be psychiatrists and psychologists trying to diagnose mental disorders in the shooter and people reasoning there has to be pain in life to enjoy the pleasure. We'll all try to explain it.

But try explaining it to two children whose father may have just taken away their mother. Try telling the people who were trying to celebrate at a picnic that this was all part of a greater plan. It just doesn't make sense.

The truth is, "Why?" is the last question to ask today. It implies there was a decision made that could be logically explained, a thought process that could be laid out as an answer. But there wasn't, there couldn't have been.

Instead, there was a blinding rage which led to unspeakable things.

Michael Cavin is a United Methodist District Superintendent and has been in the ministry for 35 years. "And after 35 years, I still have no explanation for irrational human behavior," he said, "Because no one can explain irrational behavior."

Yet that won't stop us from trying.

After the Columbine massacre, columnist Leonard Pitts wrote that the only explanation for such events was the ever-present force of "evil," plain and simple. He said you can't always explain away tragedies by linking them with mental disorders. Pitts wrote, "some behaviors [are] so monstrous they dwarf our attempts to comprehend them with psychological verities."

Well-educated people will try to explain what could make such a well- educated mind snap so horribly. People who knew the victims and the suspect will try to think about what they could have done to prevent the tragedy.

Humans have mapped the earth's surface and even landed on the moon. But all too often, we have no idea what's going on in the mind of our next door neighbor - and we certainly can't understand what would drive him to do something like this.

All we can do is keep the victims of this tragedy in our thoughts, be they the children of the shooter, the witnesses or the family and friends of the fallen.

We can only see this event as a reminder to live life as if every minute were a gift.

"Life is a fleeting thing," Cavin told me, "If you have something to say to a loved one tonight, don't wait 'til tomorrow. We never know how many minutes we've got left, and we have to make every one count."

- Marc McAfee is a senior from Kennesaw majoring in broadcast news.

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