home sick

I tried to go to work this morning but I ended up home sick. Not the kind where I missed home, I mean I've slept most of today. I took nyquil last night and it seemed like I would never recover from that liquid coma. So of course I will take it again tonight.

On my way home this morning I drove pass Foss high school and there were cops everywhere. A student had shot and killed another student in a hallway before classes started. During my lucid moments I've watced the news story play out through out today. Its heartbreaking to see the horrible consequences of someone so young choosing to take another's life.

I think one of the biggest tragedies has gone unnoticed by the media. One child killed another child, and their families will never be the same. It impacted the lives of their parents, siblings, kids in the hall who witnessed it, the ones locked down in classrooms, the parents worried about their own children's safety. So many more than the 1700+ students were affected by this one event that took less than a minute to transpire. We live in a day and age where we tend to only care about things that we perceive to directly impact our own lives. And in our own decision making we think very small, i.e. "this won't hurt anyone else." The reality is that every choice we make reverberates through not just our own life but the lives of those around us and sometimes beyond. Being who I am here are a couple of examples from the Bible. Jonah chose to disobey God and we tend to focus on his time in the great fish. However there were more people on that boat in the storm who were also affected greatly by his decisions both against God and to admit his guilt. What would have happened to them if Jonah's pride had prevented him from admitting his own wrong decision? This isn't even considering the people of Ninevah to whom he eventually did go with God's message.

The story of David and Bathsheba is familiar to most. David stays home while his army is at war and spots the wife of one of his officers. They have an affair and she becomes pregnant. Davids attempts to cover up the situation fail so he decides to arrange Uriah's death in battle by having his generals change tactics midbattle. How many were really affected by that decision? Not just the unlucky love triangle. Two armies were impacted and that is a lot of lives being played with just to cover up one act of lust.

The convers of this is true too. Good decisions, things we do that have a positive impact can ripple out and impact untold numbers of lives even though they may seem inconsequential to us when we make the decision.

Its time to break this idea that we're in this simply for ourselves. Its time to recognize that one of us lives in a vacuum but that we each have an impact on those around us. So what kind of impact do you want to have? I know I make poor decisions at times, none of us is perfect. When everything is said and done I hope and pray that people will be better off for having known me however briefly.