This evening my daughter JoAnne and I had a bit of a discussion on why I was soaking in all the news report of the Virginia Tech massacre. I think she was trying to tell me that I was obsessed.

I tried to explain that I need to see this to understand and to process.

After this discussion, I was reflecting a bit on my 9/11 processing and also on the Lancaster incident described a few blogs down.

I guess I do become obsessed when something like this happens. After 9/11, I spent many nights with nightmares of standing on a ledge of one of the towers, high up and looking down into clouds and trying to decide whether to jump or not.

I could not find any rest about this experience until I had found a photo of someone actually jumping and saw a video where you could actually hear bodies hitting the ground. Sounds really gross and bizarre, but after that I was able to process through this.

So the same with Virginia Tech. I need the visuals; I need to understand what just happened. But I can't when I don't know the details.

Now that I think about it more, that's actually how I live life.

I soak in every detail.

When I first went to Israel, I read every book. I listened to music. I poured over the Scriptures. I watched videos. I met every Jewish person I could and picked their brains. I went to a synagogue and a Messianic Jewish congregation. I prayed that God would explain what I had seen, that he would help me process. And He did.

And then I felt that my life had expanded. I had become more human, a richer human, a more compassionate human. A human who can help others when they go through experiences that are overwhelming, whether good or bad.

The experiences I choose may not be pleasant.
This way of learning is definitely not everyone else's pattern, but it's mine.

And I feel richer for it. And I thank God for making me weird.
posted by Elke at 10:26 PM