The Day the Heavens Wept

Rain Come Down
By Shawn Kirchner

Come rain, come down.
Come rain, come down
Heaven's tears of mercy,
Come a-running down.

Say no words, it is too soon.
Say no words out loud.
But wrap your quiet arms around,
Hide us in your cloud.

Come wash away this grief and pain
and let all hearts be clean.
And bring the fairest flowers to meet
The sorrows we have seen.

A little lower than the Angels
We were born to be
Yet which of all the creatures
knows this misery?

Come rain, come down.
Come rain, come down.
Heaven's tears of mercy,
Come a-running down.

Three days after the massacre of Virginia Tech, light drops of rain cover Blacksburg. In some symbolic guesture, it seems as if the heavens wept in agony, yearning to offer some sort of comfort to this grieving community. As the heavens issue a flood of tears it's almost as if God himself cries for the casualties of this horrendous turn of events.

But Heaven also cries for Seung-Hui Cho, you know. For him to turn to violence, you see, he ached, he cried, he yearned for something better. In his mind, violence was only a means to an end, albeit a violent one.

What makes a man want to harm his fellow man? Perhaps the answer lies inside all of us. What makes us snap? what goes on in our minds that wants us to resort to such selfish and unfeeling actions? In his video, he commented that students teased him, taunted him, and abused and excuded him. Perhaps I was right in my blog, "People Need People," posted on Tuesday, April 10, 2007.

Seung-Hui Cho says he had no choice, and that the "blood is on our hands" -- but is he right? would he have resorted to such a deadly end if we just remembered to include people like him and make him feel loved and welcome?

Yes, he held the gun. Yes, he shot, in cold blood, 32 students, before ending the carnage with his own life. Yes, he was the angry one with a grisly vendetta to settle, but why did there have to be a vendetta in the first place?

For me, the biggest victim of all is Seung-Hui Cho. He was a victim of his own self hate, his own desire for destruction. Morphed into some evil form of what once was an innocent and pure man, he became both the hunter and the prey in a chase marred by his own sin and carnage. Fueled by the indifference of others, it lead him to a fate worse than death.

Remember, that when it rains, it pours -- and that when Heaven cries, it cries for all the victims, even Seung-Hui Cho.

The Beauty of a Well Chosen Word

Even if we do not talk, we communicate. Its part of our everyday lives so much, we don't even really think about it. You communicate to me, by reading and commenting on this blog, that you are interested. You communicate to the person next to you that you are busy by not talking to them.

But communication as we know it has changed drastically over time, so much that those living say, 100 years ago, would not know what to do if they saw our world. We don't sit around the fire, we don't read for pleasure, we don't cultivate ourselves, and we definitely don't give little talent shows at dinner parties to entertain our guests -- we just don't.

What do we have? We have cell phones and text messages and computer games and.... (shudder)... reality TV. What we say and what we do has been quickly replaced by the e-revolution that has massacred the way we think and speak on a daily basis.

Sorry all ye who stand by your computers: IM speak is not a real language. Abbreviates like, "LOL" or "JK" or "OMG" will not now or will never make it into the dictionary. The average swear word (ugh... another story for another time) can easily conjugate into any part of speech or tense, so for some, it replaces about 90% of what could be a very choice vocabulary.

Depending on your reasearch some will say that the average working vocabulary of the average high school senior is as high as 17,000 words, or as low as 5,000 words. My goodness! I have written papers longer than that! So between abbreviations and substitutions, high school students cultivate a thriving vocabulary list shorter than my term paper in English Class... lovely.

But regardless of your own vocabulary size, those who have a good command of the language the speak will always sound smarter, and educated.

So is there any hope for the future? Can we save ourselves and our posterity from a fate worse than stupidity? Sebastian Wren, PhD on BalancedReading.org, remarks, "Research has shown that past the 4th grade, the number of words a person knows depends primarily on how much time they spend reading. In fact, by the time they reach adulthood, people who make a habit of reading have a vocabulary that is about four times the size of those who rarely or never read. This disparity starts early and grows throughout life."

So in essence, you just need to turn off MTV and pick up a book. And in doing so, you and your posterity might re-learn the beauty of a well chosen word.

People Need People

Studies show that people who sleep in the same bed (and I do mean sleep) with other people tend to get a lower quality of sleep, due to the tossing and turning of one's bedmate. The same study also showed that the psychological effects of having a sleeping partner greatly increase one's happiness in the waking hours.

Another study showed that people, in times of stress will flock to others, as if the pescence of people alone would be enough to calm them.

People, as it seems, need people. It seems necessary, even crucial for people to have companionship and inclusion in their society. Whether you are willing to admit to it or not, whether it is concious or not, everyone wants to be part of the group, part of society, and part of a larger whole, bigger than themselves alone.

But what about those of which getting to be part of that whole seems just a little out of their grasp? What about those freaks, geeks, posers, and losers that, for some-odd reason do not merit inclusion?

Those whom we shut out of the group can, if they dont find inclusion elswhere, suffer serious repercussions later in life that can affect the way they live and operate.

Then one day, someday, as if snapped from nowhere, they will make their desires known. They will make that cry for inclusion, and unfortunately, sometimes it isn't pretty. Those who beg and beg for a friend, for a group to call their own, but come up empty handed can resort to sometimes deadly methods. Sometimes, they would literally kill for compainonship, either themselves or others.

These outcasts and scapegoats starve for the companionship of others, and with noone to give it, what else are they to do?

The moral of this sometimes tragic tale? Include those whom are cast out, noone likes to be an outcast. Everyone needs a friend. It can save their life you know. It may even, one day save your own.

Forever a Child

Have you ever spent the day with a "Forever" child? Have you ever spent the day with someone whose body grows, but their mind doesn't?

I had the privilege of doing exactly that a few days ago. I watched as we traversed the mall, how, around every corner, she found a new world of exiting things to touch, to feel, to explore. Its amazing how she found wonder in things that normal people tend to take for granted.

Content with exploring, we went to every store checked out every booth seemingly content to just look. Not until the very last ten minutes of our shopping journey, did she even consider buying. She just talked about the cares of a little child as she ran her fingers through racks and racks of clothes, bin of beads and necklaces, and other items of fancy. Her spoils from that day? Nothing much -- just a small teddy bear, which she made at Build-a-Bear.

Isn't interesting how a fourteen year old girl would find amusement in a teddy bear?

It seems as we grow up and get further down this road we call life, we tend to forget the wonder in everyday things.

Maybe we can take a lesson from the life of a "Forever" child and notice that some of the things that are worth looking for are right under our noses, waiting to be discovered. That childlike wonder should grace our character always and forever.

Dream of a Blessed Spirit by W.B. Yeats

All the heavy days are over;
Leave the body's coloured pride
Underneath the grass and clover,
With the feet laid side by side.

One with her are mirth and duty;
Bear the gold-embroidered dress,
For she needs not her sad beauty,
To the scented oaken press.

Hers the kiss of Mother Mary,
The long hair is on her face;
Still she goes with footsteps wary
Full of earth's old timid grace.

With white feet of angels seven
Her white feet go glimmering;
And above the deep of heaven,
Flame on flame, and wing on wing.

Bathing Suit Season

I put on my bating suit today. I did not go swimming or anything like that. I just wanted to see how it looked. Point in fact, for the first time, in a long time, I thought I looked good. I don't ever remember being this comfortable with my body before.

As I stood there, looking at myself in the silvery mirror, tracing ever curve of my body with my eyes, staring at the silver whale charm that hung around my neck, I saw a me I never felt comfortable seeing before -- and it was exhilarating.

The me I saw was not the me I thought I was.

I saw a woman who knew she was beautiful, even though she was not a size 2. I saw someone who, even though she was not tiny, had her own form of beautiful. She had a sexy set of curves, and she knew it.

It makes me happy to see her in the mirror, because I never saw her before, and I hope that she will always be there, whenever I look in the mirror. It was scary living life without her.

Peter Pan and the Believers

If there were ever a time to ever believe in faeries, I do belive now would be it.

It seems the world has forgotten what it was like to believe in something that is bigger than themselves (or in this case, smaller). Fantastic things seem just a little beyond our reach and it seems as if we all but give up dreaming for something that is only real when we clap our hands and believe it is.

But more important than the fantastic things that seem to pop out of some storybook from our childhood, humans as a whole have ceased to believe in some of the most simple, yet crucial parts of our existence.

Ask yourselves -- Do you believe in God? (any God, really.) Do you believe in others? and, do you believe in yourself? I have has the misfortune to cross paths with individuals who answer no to all three.

What a sad existence -- when you can't, even if you tried, believe in anyone or anything? When you don't believe in anything, you don't have anything to live for, or anyone to live for. When you dont have that, what is the puropse of living?

We need to believe in something, in order to make something worth surviving this hard road we call life.

Do me a favor -- Believe. Believe in anything. Its better than believing in nothing, and if we all have something to believe in, we can make this world something that ends in the happily ever after of our dreams.

Forbidden Fruit

Since the start of creation, Man (and woman) for that matter has always been faced with its biggest nemisis -- something we so affectionately call our forbidden fruits.

Whether those temptations grow on a tree or walk upright in front of us, they are always there, luring us ever closer to our eventual demise. Humans, by nature always seem to get stuck in this "bug in zapper" trance that draws us ever nearer to something that looks appealing, even nessesary for survival, but will surely take us down a path that we do not want to see or even awknowledge its existence.

It seems lately I have fallen victim to one of my own "forbidden fruits." I have never met someone who is everything I want and everything I don't at the same time. God give me the strength to walk away from my forbidden fruit while I still can.

Our Addiction to Racism

These past four weeks of the Dixie Sun have…appalled me. The opinions of Dixie State College students and faculty have proven to me that Dixie State College of Utah is not the school I once thought of it to be. Not because of the arrival of our new trans-gendered friend, not because Christa (I first met her as Eric) has crossed gender lines, creating controversy in this school, but because of the responses that disgrace all that Dixie State College of Utah supports – a world of equality and safety for all involved.

We have experienced on Dixie State College, what I call the New Face of Racism. In the past few weeks every Dixie State student and faculty member has borne witness to libel, mudslinging, and false judgments that force me to write this article.

Especially in this state, where the majority of citizens have been taught to “Love one another as Jesus loves you,” it scares me that here, on the home front, some students and faculty members lack the inability to be kind to others regardless of what they do.

It shocks me that 40 years after the civil rights movement, we say that racism is on its way out but we sweep under the carpet any mention of socially deviant behavior. Trans-gendered people are not the only ones who have been so affectionately called “it.” Humans use the term when they want to degrade their fellow man in order to justify prejudice. What about the Jews? Or the Blacks? Asians? Arabs? Irish? Mormons? Believe me -- the list goes on.

This addiction to racism controls our society and our thoughts. If we can’t persecute one group, we persecute someone else. “Okay… we can’t persecute Blacks or the communists any more so let’s move on to the next group.” Okay… that seems a little harsh but, just watch: when this “Sexual” revolution calms down, people will find something they have a problem living with. Do we have the power, as Americans and as humans, to end this dangerous cycle of racism? Can we quit our deadly addiction to hate and prejudice?

I am not a lesbian, and those who know me best can attest to that. I do not understand Christa’s desire to be female, nor do I think I ever will. But there is one thing I do understand: that I cannot change her, just as I cannot change where the sun sets or the direction the wind blows.

Do you remember that old adage, “God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference?” Christa’s predilection for all things female is one of those things that we need to have the serenity to accept because changing her now is really a moot point.

We are not required to be best friends with the trans gendered and transsexual. We are not even required to make them a part of our life. But we are required to be civil and kind. They are they who will quote, “if thine eye offends thee, pluck it out.” But Jesus also says that, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” is the greatest law in heaven, second only to Loving God. I intend to do just that – to love and care for my neighbors, as Christ would have me do.

I am a firm believer in world peace. It sounds idealistic, but world peace happens when we put down our own selfish desires and learn to live with one another without slitting each other’s throats. World peace does not happen when we are all best friends, it happens when we can understand that we all have differences, but we can live with that fact and not kill each other because of it. We need to look at each other with kindness instead of hate.

Let’s start “world peace” here at Dixie State College of Utah, and be kind to everyone. When this happens Dixie State College will become the college that everyone can be proud to attend.

Tell My Ma...

We are singing this song in Choir, called "Tell My Ma." Its an Irish folksong about a girl and all the boys want her, and would die if they dont have her. The song goes like this:

I'll tell my ma when I go home
The boys won't leave the girls alone
They pulled my hair, they stole my comb
But that's all right till I go home.

She is handsome, she is pretty
She is the bell of Belfast city.
She is courting one, two, three:
Please won't you tell me who is she?

Albert Mooney says he loves her
All the boys are fighting for her
They knock at the door and they ring at the bell
Sayin' "Oh my true love, are you well?"

Out she comes as white as snow
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
Miss Jenny Murray says she'll die
If she doesn't get the fellow with the roving eye.

Let the wind and rain and the hail blow high
And the snow come tumblin' from the sky
She's as nice as apple pie
She'll get her own lad by and by.

When she gets a lad of her own
She won't tell her ma when she goes home
Let them all come as they will
For it's Albert Mooney she loves still

Why is it that some girls tend to catch everyone's eye? They always seem to be in the spotlight: the center of attention, whereas there are good women, kind, gentle, strong, passionate, smart women who tend to get pushed aside for the other girl.

Take Jane Austen, for example. She writes some of the most iconic, romantic literature of our time, and yet, fails to make her own life one of the iconic romances of which she writes. She dies, single at 41, of Addison's Disease (or breast cancer, depending on your source). Maybe it was pride, or prejudice that did her in. The world may never know for sure.

But you know,

Its not all the blame can be placed on those lacking an x chromosome.

I have also noticed that many women throw themselves at one boy, leaving the rest of the male sex in the dark, even if they try hard to win the girl over. These girls want nothing to do with the good men that are pushed aside so the "fellow with the rovin' eye" can get a better look.

So what is left? a bunch of old maids throwing themselves at the handsome prince that may or may not whisk them away to some stereotypic "happily ever after", and thousands of boys chasing after this years prom queen or uber supermodel.

And when this war between the sexes is over, the refugees are good men and good women who lack the ability to stand in the limelight and will forever be banished to lonlieness. They just lack the courage and the stamina to head for each other, and find their own version of happiness.

I guess lonlieness is all our own fault, regardless of our sex.

Tears Streaming Down My Face

I did not cry when my Grandmother died. Not one single solitary tear. I felt...cold. I feld sad, sorrowful, sure. But tears never streamed down my face.

I rarely cry when I read books, watch movies, or listen to people tell stories that for normal people, really do bring tears. Don't get me wrong, I feel emotion, anguish, sadness. But I rarely, if ever, cry.

Why is it that crying is such a difficult task for me?

I understand, I comfort, I mourn, I anguish. I care, I love -- I feel.

But I don't cry -- at least not for others.

But I do cry. for myself. when my thermometer finally bursts, and all the anguish built up inside of me explodes like some roman candle, I do cry. But its a selfish cry. I cry for myself, and myself alone.

I guess that is the lesson I need to learn -- how to cry for others and forget myself.

Why Do I Care?

Last year, with my home ward, I went on a Pioneer Trek with the youth. I asked my father what he had learned the most on the trek and he said one thing: "Sarah, I learned how much you truly care about these people."

His remark suprised me. I did not think I cared that much. I don't talk to any of them any more, and needless to say, I have not done so since. But he said, I cared. But I guess I do care. I cared when I gave up my coat to Brittany when it was cold on those Wyoming plains, I cared when I wrapped bandages, cleaned bruises and tied shoes all while pusing those wretched handcarts across the wyoming plains. I guess, I just did not realise I cared. You see, I did this all automatically, without even a thought. So much that I had to me reminded. Its like I did all these things on some other plane of conciousness that I was not aware of or had any control over.

But it continues, you see.

I still care in this manner. The countless service hours, the time, money, energy spent on my friends, family, and... complete strangers still happens in this matter. I do it without a second thought, without even realising.

Yet it scares me.

It scares me that I do this to prove to them that I am not like them. That I am somehow better than the haters, players, and the manipulators. I want to be more than just me. I want to do more, to love more, to understand more -- to BE more.

By biggest fear is that I will never BE enough.