Carried back from Ol' Virginnie....

Just back from a four-day whirlwind trip to Virginia to witness son Evan graduate from the University of Virginia Law School. As I write, one day after his gripping his diploma (along with 350 others gripping theirs), Evan is at Lewis & Clark Law School starting his BAR review course. The exam is in late July.

The beat goes on.

Quick takes on Virginia. Virginians are a grit-raised, girth-enhanced people. Accordingly grocery store aisles are four-lanes wide. Virginians don't hug (which could have to do with the humidity), and they generally drive Red, White and Blue American rigs with NASCAR aspirations.

Gas sells for 50 cents a gallon less there than here. Priuses are as rare as atheists. Gun shops are as plentiful as historical markers. Virginia wears its history on its sleeve, and why not? Jefferson, Lee, Madison, etc. If you've got it, flaunt it.

Virginians are friendly, helpful and, yes, gracious. Stepping into a visitor information center (and every hamlet has one) is to be drenched in grace and charm. The hospitality can sometimes go right over the top. I mean these local greeters were often far more excited about my visit than I was. Being greeted like this can be exhausting. At times I wanted to cry out, "Down, down!" as I might to an exuberant, frenzied puppy. No more brochures! No more questions about where I'm from or where I've been or which way I'm headed.

But Virginians mean well. God, do they mean well. But better that than the other. So bless 'em!

More later. Still on East Coast time, I'm going to bed.

Blacksburg transformed

I want to share a moving reaction to last week's tragedy in Blacksburg, Virginia. It comes from a Blacksburg resident, David Pitonyak, who is a friend of my friend Lisa Lieberman here in Portland.

Lisa shared a letter David wrote in the hours after the massacre, and David has kindly given me permission to share it with you. To find out more about David and his work you can visit his web site.

Friends and Family:

I was in Vancouver, Washington, when the terrible events of April 16th unfolded. Cyndi called me early in the morning and asked me if I had the television on. She was in "lock down" at Kipps Elementary School and all she knew at that point was that a gunman was on the loose, having killed one or two people, injuring seven or eight others.

I turned on the set and there it was, the story unfolding — the now all-too-familiar images of cops running up the steps of Norris Hall, ambulances racing away with possible survivors, confused students looking on. First it was two dead, then it was eight; suddenly, impossibly, it jumped to 22 and soon it would be 33.

My community was being turned into another place. Some other place I could barely recognize.

It's Wednesday and I am catching the red eye home. For the third night in a row, I can't sleep. The plane is equipped with satellite TV and I can see those images from the other Blacksburg flickering from the backs
of seats.

I am so fed up with watching, but I can't stop myself from watching. Where is that place? Why is everyone crying?

So many of you have been so sweet to write or call. Cyndi and I want you to know that it has meant the world to us. As much as we would love to write or call each of you, as much as we would love to give you the details, we are too stunned and too tired to make much sense of anything.

So, with that said, a simple summary:

We are OK

The boys are OK.

We are all safe.

We are praying for those who have been killed or injured. We are praying the man who did the killing.

Mostly, we are thinking about the Moms and Dads who lost their babies in all of this (we simply cannot imagine what they have been going through).

So pray for them if you have a minute. Pray for them even if you aren't the praying kind. While you're at it, pray for the whole damn planet because there are just too many Moms and Dads losing their babies these days.

We will catch up when we find energy and heart.

I plan to put on my hiking boots soon and walk everywhere I can — down our Main Street, through the Tech Campus, over and around Kipps Elementary.

I will let you know if I find my town again.

Love,

David

A transfer of spirit

The inevitable rows of photos of Virginia Tech victims are starting to appear. In the text and narrations we learn of talent, virtue, ambition and promise taken—of futures snuffed out.

Each of us grieve the loss in our own way. But my grief has jogged me into realizing how rarely in the course of our lives we stop and allow ourselves to feel grief's opposite—celebration and joy about those around us still in the very fullness of life.

I walked onto the Sylvania campus of Portland Community College on Tuesday feeling ever so slightly anxious, as if this community were just a little more vulnerable to a perverse madness.

But in my class, I scanned the faces of my own students with renewed appreciation. I saw in them much of what I witness in those portraits in the media. I saw in my students the same promise and the goodness that was lost in Blacksburg. In my classroom and on the PCC campus, thankfully, all are very much alive and safe—still brimming with promise.

Certainly with time, an antidote to our grief over terrible loss can be a celebration and nurturing of life and all it offers us in our time.

I’d like to think that the spirit and promise of the Virginia Tech victims are not gone but instilled now in us, the living—that they inspire us to flourish in, share and celebrate the virtues and talents we have been granted in this life.