Arresting violence where and how?

There’s a lot of discussion about the Virginia Tech shooter now, fueled in large part by the individual’s own writings and videotaping that indicate a very troubled mind. How much of this was known in the months and years before his violent end and could/should anything have been done previously to remove this person from society?

This is now in the hands of the local police and legal experts to figure out. But what is going on right now in everyone else’s community — is there potential danger lurking, bubbling up in an office, school or mall? What can be done to prevent violence from having disastrous effect?

It seems to me that I have work to do in my own community to pray for peace and harmony…to be listening and alert to situations and people that need attention and care.

Years ago someone placed a ready-to-explode firebomb (glass bottle filled with gasoline and a burning cigarette) in the stairwell of my ad agency office. An employee had unwittingly knocked the cigarette off the bottle, diffusing the bomb.

We called the police right away, but the staff was really shook up. Me too. Why would anyone do this? Were we a target? Does someone have a grudge against us? How vulnerable we all felt!!

I went to my office to pray. When I pray, I always start with God and who He is…and who I am in relation to Him. Since God is in all space how could we not be safe in the onmipresence of Him who is divine Love? What could overcome the supreme and universal law of harmony and goodness?

Since God is the Creator of all life and every living being, would He create a victim…or even a victimizer? I reasoned that this was simply not possible in His logical creation. I needed right at this time to choose to believe the spiritual facts of life, and not let the physical evidence dominate my thinking. The more I believed in God’s universe, the more I would see His evidence.

When the police came, they said the paraphernalia on the stairs looked a lot like the evidence of several arson fires in the city in the past several weeks. What hit me then was that this kind of destructive activity had to be arrested for the safety and protection of the whole community.

OK, I thought, I can help my staff AND my community. Instead of being afraid and feeling vulnerable, I could secure my thinking with the conviction that God’s love is the only force motivating and protecting all of us.

So what I realized is that arresting violence needs to start with my own thinking….conform my thoughts persistently to what I know to be spiritually true. No more dark imaginings, “what-ifs”. When my thinking is not vulnerable to these evil thoughts then I am wearing a “teflon shield”!

And the fire-bomber? It seemed logical to me that the same divine law that was holding me and the community in safety would also require correction…and that is exactly what happened.

Within the week, the police called to say that they had arrested someone who turned out to be the perpetrator, thanks to a fingerprint left on the evidence in our office. Interesting. Not only that, the evidence indicated that this was the arsonist responsible for the other fires as well.

Protection and correction. We all have the right, as divine children of Love, to see evidence of both in our communities. But I am learning it takes disciplined vigilance — persistent prayers to understand and call forth the evidence of spiritual reality in daily life.

Policing my own thoughts and arresting ideas that contradict spiritual facts is hard to maintain. But the Virginia Tech tragedy reminds me that it is essential. And that it is something I can do wherever I am.