In my early twenties, I chose not to read anything heavy because I didn't want "other people's ideas" crowding my own mind.  I paid attention to current events on the local, national and international levels, but not much else.  All the while I seemed to be forming my view about how this all works.

In my late twenties and early thirties I started investigating other points of view, and found that what I had "figured out" was not new at all.  So much for other "other people's ideas."  They all come in and out of fashion.  None ever really "pulls the trigger."  That's fine.  I kept reading and occasionally engaging in forum activity and discussion about various theories and conceptual systems.  None of it mattered.

Through it all, I keep breathing, eating, sleeping, doing my job, raising my family, being here, and at my best in selfless service.  Doesn't seem to be any conceptual system that changes that.  I searched for a number of years, by watching the world then by contemplating various systems of thought.  Through it all, I have been alive.  That's all, and it's enough.

This is not to say that conceptualizations and ideologies and theories are bad.  They have been part of this process for me, so how can I say they are bad?  I can't say that anymore than I can say that eating dinner is bad.  Food, knowlege, air, water, whatever, have always been there to fill some emptiness, in my gut, my mind, my lungs, my cells, and then they pass through.  They are always available, just as that emptiness is always there wanting to be filled.  That's fine.  I'm just not concerned, or as concerned, about it as I used to be.

I'm here. I'm doing stuff like writing this.  I'm digesting all manner of forms, gross, subtle and causal, and apparently I will continue to do so.  Or is this moment digesting what I think of as me?  Is it not so much that I'm here, but I am Here.  I am this moment, this place, here and now.  I am perfectly still, always here, and everything else just passes through me.  Here.  I  Am.

a profound haiku
about the fertile spring ground
has been forgotten

Two VT degrees.
Countless classes in Norris.
It's odd.  It's meaningless.

Has my heart grown cold?
Is it all so confusing?
Is life more than death?

arbitrary form
electrons as words on screen
want to say something

Emotionally
I am not reacting much.
Equanimity?

I feel great concern,
But I do not feel sorrow.
For that there is shame.

Now, I am sad.  It's taken a while.  Maybe I resisted it.  This tribute helped to reveal it to me.  For that I am thankful.

I am sad because of the suffering.  I am sad because of the misunderstanding.  I am sad because of the desparation.

I am sad because of the love I feel.  I am sad that the deceased and their friends, family, community, they feel that same love.  I am sad because all of those who contribute their prayers and support feel that love.

Why does this make me sad?  Because the man who did this didn't know that this same love was his birthright, too.  I am sad because the world is full of people who have all of that love, but they just never learned how to find it.

I am also sad because I love Virginia Tech.  I loved it while I was there.  I love remembering my time there.  I love that I was so fortunate to spend 6 years of my life there.  I love the people I met who are still my good friends.  And now, when I think of Virginia Tech, instead of those things, I will remember the suffering and loss of love, rather than the love I know and have known.

And, I am grateful, because these tears also remind me of just how overwhelming this love is.  This tribute bears witness to that.  This deep sadness calling forth such an outpouring of love.  We are all the benefactors of that.  This profound sadness, like the mystery of life on this earth with all it's inherent suffering, it is a gift.

Thank you.

I knelt to the earth,
heart beating in fertile ground
as death yielded life.

It was there waiting,
gathering itself for me
to find it again.

Though it lay dormant,
I felt I had lost my heart.
Now, behold its growth!

Oh, Ambivalence,
You left, and left me certain
To reap new harvests!