Virginia Tech Candlelight Vigil

The event was touching. People read verses from the Bible, and two women from MSA read from the Qu'ran, the first woman speaking in Arabic and the second (Saddyna) reading an English translation. At first, the microphone didn't work, and everyone shuffled closer to the podium to better hear, causing us to reduce our "personal space." What kinds of situations facilitate, and permit, this breach of such a strongly held taboo as our distance between our bodies?

Word of Truth led us in singing Amazing Grace as we lit our candles, a process which began on the inside of the arc of people and spread to the back in a wave of increasing light, each person sharing the flame of their candle with the unlit wick of the person behind them, and together we sang. To see the light spreading, to hear people lifting their voices, together, in song to the same god...it made me cry.

I cried because we expressed this unity in the aftermath of such a tragedy rather than before it. In the context of tragedy, we were willing to pray together, to sing together, to bow our heads in a moment of silence together, to stand, together, with our candles, lit by the willing assistance of a stranger whom we may or may not see again.

I ponder the metaphor of the candle. I see it as a representation of the self, a symbol of our vital energy that we our selves hold, and at first I wondered to what extent this enforced individualism, but then I saw the paper disc that someone had pushed the candle through, now catching hot wax that dripped from around the wick just as tears slid from the eyes of my peers. And I saw how many candles depended on others to be lit. And I saw how, when we each held these candles, the light overlapped and collaborated and spread outward into something we shared, and we could see it and feel its heat, and if anyone had walked by, they would have felt it, too, and would have been welcome to join us. And I saw how that light would not have been observable had it not been night. And I wondered why the shooter felt compelled to harm others, wondered what forces led him to that sense of isolation, for he surely felt as one in the night. And I see him as holding his own candle, but by himself, a solitary light meek and feeble, and when it blew out, no one was around to lend him their light. Each person scurried past, hands cupped around their meager flames because of their fear that it would go out. But if we would support each other, we would recognize that we do not need to protect our selves so much, that when we focus so much on our own selves, we are actually neglecting our true selves. When we look so anxiously at our flames, we fail to see that a fellow person's has become extinguished. But if we walk together, our light can show the way for our selves, our unified self, and others, who should be welcome to join us or just use us momentarily. And because we have the confidence of our numbers, none need protect their flame over-zealously, because if one goes out, several others can offer help. And the beauty full thing, the truly beauty full thing, is that no one gives anything up for the sharing; on the contrary, all benefit from it.

During the readings from holy books, during prayer, and during Amazing Grace, I thought of god for the first time in terms of a key metaphor, this common thread to unite a diverse people and provide them with a framework for understanding. In this way, a seeker, one searching for a line-of-best-fit religion, can, I believe, fully believe a sought-and-found religion, partially because they can claim an appeal to faith and point out that it was always true and they simply hadn't known it, but beyond that is the sense that a seeker is not looking for something to believe in, but for a way to believe in that essence, a way to express that belief through ritualism and have a community to share that.

I don't know how we would have communicated tonight if not through religion. I don't know how we would have understood each other. Thinking of the word communicate, I see that it means something like 'to create unity together,' that community means (approximately) 'with unity.' Communication, then, if truly observed, is a process whereby we unify, and community is a result of that process which requires ongoing communication, ongoing creation and definition.