A few thoughts

In light of what's happened at Virginia Tech recently, there's some stuff I've been thinking on.  First, the whole debate about gun control, video game/movie influences is inappropriate for the time.  No one of these issues made the guy kill the victims, they are all little factors that work together with a person's personal choices and inclinations.  Quite frankly, America, myself included, does have an unhealthy fixation on violence, and something should be done to help control that.  As for guns, the debate is inappropriate for the time.  We should spend this time remembering those that died and trying to help and console those who are grieving in any way we can.

School shootings and all these other senseless crimes will not be solved by enacting stricter gun laws.  What will change things is having love like what St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13.  If we, myself especially, loved our neighbors as ourselves, the world would be a much better place.  Would these tragedies still happen?  Probably.  But they could be prevented and would be less likely to occur.  I don't know what went on in the killer's mind, but if, somewhere along the line, he had known real love instead of negativity, this never would have happened.  To end my two cents, a quote from Leo Tolstoy will suffice:  "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."  That's where it starts, not with legislation, policies, security measures, and so on.  It starts with each one of us.  May God comfort those who are mourning the loss, and may he grant rest to those who were slain.

Currently Reading Father Seraphim Rose: His Life and Works By Hieromonk Damascene see related

It's hard to maintain a proper outlook on life sometimes.  Being a rather imbalanced individual, I all too often take what should be Godly sorrow and contrition for my sins and disobedience to God and turn it into mere depression, which isn't right.  On the other hand, one can't too optimistic because that leads to delusion in which sin isn't seen as such a big deal.  Of course, this is why we have spiritual fathers, people wiser than us that know how to treat the problems that we face.

This book about Father Seraphim Rose is excellent.  It is really interesting to see how his conversion gradually came about.

By the way, Fr. Gerasim of the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood is in Ecuador on missions, prayer could definitely be used.

This Sunday was the Sunday of All Saints of North America.  It's nice to have an Orthodox heritage in this land, even if it is modest compared to other nations.

Not too much happened today, although things picked up a bit towards the end of the day.  I was invited to go to a friend's house to play Halo and hang out for a while.  I played one round of Halo with the folks there and I have to admit I really don't like that whole genre of shooting games etc much anymore.  Not to pass judgment on anyone, but I really don't see how those games are all that great; it's just a bunch of running around and killing, which isn't such a great thing.  Yeah, I do kinda have a problem with all the killing in video games these days.  It just strikes me as odd because in real life, such things would violate the Thou shalt not kill commandment (yes, I don't remember the exact number of the top of my head).  Sure one can try to qualify that with "oh that means don't murder", well, most of the early Christian writers were adamantly against killing of any sort, even in self-defense and, I think, even of beholding death.  Of course there was the Old Testament, and of course there were Christian nations that had armies, but in the case of the Old Testament, the non-murder killing was largely due to command of God (i.e. the Israelites killing the Canaanites) as part of His plan and His judgment against the sins of the assorted Canaanites.  Sadly some people only look at that part of the Bible and ignore the immense love of God shown in Christ, and the fact that Christianity generally teaches non-violence.  I say generally because of course nations had armies with which they would defend their homelands as shown by the history of Byzantium and Russia as well as other nations.  There were also many soldier-saints.

Back to the happenings of the day.  The has begun to clear up again and there was some fog on the top of Pillar Mountain (which isn't a mountain as one normally thinks of it, more of a large hill in shape I guess) which has a road leading to the top of it.  So, I decided that with the sun setting and some fog still on the mountain, I would go up and take some photos. Photography is a sort of hobby that I have.  I don't take photos too often, mostly just when the mood strikes me.  As I was driving up the mountain I saw two guys going up, and they stuck their thumbs out, hitchiking.  They seemed like nice guys, so I pulled over and let them hop in.  Turns out they are here to work in the canneries from summer and were from Poland.  As cool as that is, I was kind of hoping that they'd be from Romania or Russia or some other Orthdox country and, of course, be Orthodox.  Regardless, they were pretty nice guys, Chris and Andrew I believe their names were.  As we went up the mountain, there were other workers going up and down.  Sightseeing I suppose.  So, we got to the top of the mountain and we all got out, they went their way and I went and took a few pictures.  Now, maybe it's just my somewhat obsessive-compulsive nature kicking in, but I think it'd be nice to pray for these two guys if you, O reader, get the chance.  I don't know if they are religious or not, but prayer never hurts.