For any who may be looking for me...

I haven't posted anywhere in a few days. It's because there's some real mess going down where I am.

The campus ministry I am a part of is in a state of mourning. One of our guys shot himself Sunday night/Monday morning and is dead. His brother, who's been in our ministry longer than he has, was in the house when the gun went off, and was the one who found him.


There's a core of the leadership team getting ready to take a crash course in grief counseling or what the heck ever. Our campus minister's wife is working on her dissertation in Psychology, so she's going to do that for us.

Personally, I didn't know the guy very well. We were acquainted, but that's about it. I know his g/f, though. She's on the leadership team. She's doing about as well as can be, as are the others here who were closest to him. And even though I didn't know him, there's still a different timbre to the sound of the students massing in the living room. Like taking a string quint piece and transcribing it for brass quint. It's the same music, but it still sounds different.


It's weird here. No one knows exactly what to feel. We were all blindsided. His g/f was with him just last night doing laundry at his house. She says she had no clue anything was wrong with him.


It's weird how these things change the way you look at your faith. All those cliche "Why's" and what not. I wonder, if I didn't have a faith that answers so many of those "Why's," what would I feel now? Would things be harder? Would it be easier?

I saw some one talking about the loss of a friend, who posted that she imagined that the Christian Faith seemed like it might be comforting in these times. I disagree, though. Knowledge doesn't change the feelings that come when these things happen. People have asked me "why does an all loving God allow bad things to happen? Why the possibility for hurt?", and I have always had an answer to that question. I was taught how to answer that question before it was even asked of me. However, that knowledge doesn't make the hurt or discomfort go away. There's still a voice missing, there's still people who miss him.


Days like these are the ones where people develop intimate knowledge of their shoes, and the paths that they walk.