Category Archives: events

22 November

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I had almost forgotten what day it is. I was on the way to a class on 22 November 1963, and I learned of the President’s death from a colleague, Elizabeth Lomax, a close relative of the famous Alan, God rest her soul.

22 November was a Friday. I was teaching an extension course at old Crozier Technical High School in downtown Dallas the following Monday evening. As we were getting ready to begin the lesson, an impassioned voice came over the loudspeaker asking us all to join in prayer. I don’t remember the prayer, only its agonized conclusion: “Why, Lord, why did it have to happen, and why did it have to happen here?!”

In the time intervening we had witnessed, via the relatively new medium of television, report of the the death of Officer J. D. Tippett, a good deal of bluster from Dallas District Attorney, Henry Wade, and the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. We had also witnessed the President’s funeral, with the Kennedy family walking behind the horse-drawn caisson that bore the President’s coffin through the streets of Washington from the White House to St. Matthew’s Cathedral.

It was a time like no other–until I walked into my office building at North Texas years later and saw on television the death of the World Trade Center.

Thanks to Susan Russell for these images.

making sure it goes on

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I’m hoping to write pieces about the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent lecture on scripture (some commentary and the full text of the lecture may be found here); and on the “cautioning” of Jon Sobrino. I’ll get these up soon, though I’m not sure right now which will come first.  

Meanwhile, Tim Burke has what seems to me a worthwhile note about the shootings at Virginia Tech:

Do we have to domesticate every event into the simple-mindedness of single-cause arguments, master the meaninglessness that sometimes comes with being human with the jabber of the punditocracy? Can’t we just reach out collectively to put a quiet hand on the shoulder of those who have lost friends, family and colleagues?

Read the rest here. 

Virginia Tech

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My colleague Bob Watson at Brainstorms reports that it’s not the worst school mass murder in U.S. History as has been claimed in the early news reports. But it’s so terrible that I can’t take it in. The Washinton Post reports 32 dead and more than two dozen injured. I pray for the dead and injured, and I pray for the community at Virginia Tech, those who have been terrorized and those who have had the task of dealing directly with the violence and for their families and friends. And I pray for the killer, whoever that was. Some are reporting that students have been critical of police for failing to stop the shootings sooner. There are stories of two separate shooting sprees, two hours apart.

I pray for all who have been directly involved in this terrible thing and for the rest of us as well.