The Night Before the Day.

I remember that the night before the day seemed so much darker than usual. It may have been because of the wind. Living in Blacksburg I had seen strong winds before, but this, this was stronger. Yes, maybe that’s why it seemed darker. I stayed awake listening to the wind beat the tree against my window. Tomorrow was the big pharmacology test – THE ONE that I had to pass. I finally went to sleep, but only to be awakened several times throughout the night by sounds of this distinctively strong wind.

The Morning of the Day.

The alarm went off. In and out of the shower. Throw on the clothes. Quick pharmacology review. Pencils sharpened? Yes. Out the door. Wham, a gust of wind “helps” me close my front door as I rush into my car. “Good grief that wind is strong!” Muscling my way, I got out of my car and made my way through this wind into class. All I could think about was my dumb test while little did I know, 32 people were being gunned down a mile away as I penciled in the bubbles on the scan-tron. Finally, I finished and by that time he had finished and it was all over – but the mourning had just begun. I was one of the last ones finishing my test (as usual). I would later find out that several classmates who were First Responders had finished their tests early and responded to the shooting and proved to be vital in the crisis. I came back to my house to grab some food and relax after the test before we ere supposed to be back in class.

Was that somebody on a bullhorn outside? I couldn’t tell because the wind was drowning out the noise. There it was again but I swear I could not understand what they were saying. I remember wondering if the SWAT team was in my apartment complex. And then I had a flashback to earlier in the year on the first day of classes at VT when a kid escaped from police custody, stole the officer’s gun, evaded capture for a day or two and killed several people including a police officer in the process. “I wonder if there has been a shooting.” I flipped on the TV. “Shooting at Virginia Tech, 2 killed.”

I remained glued to the TV for the rest of the day as the story unfolded. At one point early on VT announced a convocation service for the next day. It was at this point I knew that the situation was worse than what we thought. No one knew how much worse, and when it was all said and done there were 33 fatalities including the killer. I remember the many comments on the news about the winds grounding the helicopters. My apartment being on one of the main streets into campus I remember the sirens which did not stop all day. I don’t think I had ever seen that many police cars in my life put together. The line of state police cars coming into town did not stop all day. Later that evening a few of my friends and I drove through Blacksburg. There were state police all over campus standing, looking, with shotguns in hand. It was real. I will tell you, the wind did not let up that day, and in fact it even snowed a bit.

The Mourning of the Day.

Almost immediately Matt Drudge’s siren was sitting on top of Hokie Nation, questions were being formulated, Geraldo was making unfounded ignorant accusations, and Brian Williams and Matt Lauer were on planes to Blacksburg. We awoke the next morning to a sea of media. The President was coming to town and the line into Cassell was insane. My friend and I were able to make it inside for the service and I remember the now famous chant, “We will prevail, we are Virginia Tech”. I came out of the service feeling frustrated and grieved at the best consolation secular humanism had to offer. There was one ray of light that broke through during the service, a random Joe in the crowd spontaneously led the stadium in the Lord’s prayer, and for a brief moment we looked outside of ourselves and our Cassell for answers.

The Following Days, Weeks, and Months After.

Bodies were buried. Vigils and memorials were held. Cards were signed. The campus was filled with makeshift memorials from around the country. I found out that one of my neighbors was a victim. Everybody knew somebody who knew somebody. There is one scene that I will never forget. I waited 2 or 3 days before I walked down to the crime scene with my brother and our friend. It was evening when we walked. They told me about classes they had had on that floor in Norris and described the layout of the rooms. We walked around the building in disbelief. We walked on the sidewalk across which rescuers carried the bleeding injured. As we walked on that sidewalk in front of the building I said hello to the officer and looked down at my feet. I gasped when I realized what I was looking at—it was a bloodstain.

One Year Later.

Ecclesiastes 1:6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.

Today is one year later and the violent winds continue to blow through our country as I saw headlines just this week of school closings due to threats. I fear we have not learned from Virginia Tech just as we have not learned from Jonesborough, Paducah, Columbine, Northern Illinois, and others. As a culture we have destroyed the ideal of the absolute dignity of human life. Our culture has indoctrinated us in the Church of Darwin which tells us that we are just warts on the face of a random universe that somehow came into order out of a disorderly nothing (which has existed for eternity) and continues to randomly progress against the principles of entropy. Why are we so shocked that there are those who logically conclude from this that human beings have no more absolute intrinsic value, meaning, worth, or dignity than any other speck of matter? We are just molecules, a clump of cells.

Matthew 7:25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

The questions raised must be answered with truth. We must seek to cultivate a culture of life founded upon the rock. We must seek to recover the ideal of human dignity and restore its emphasis in all of our institutions. Dignity is bestowed and endowed by the Creator and we must as a culture acknowledge that there is a Rock** which our house must be ultimately be built upon.

**For more information on this Rock:

• Louis Giglio at Virginia Tech on the week after the shootings.
• John Macarthur on Virginia Tech.
• Ravi Zacharias at Virginia Tech.

This video is a shout out to the Obama campaign:

UPDATE: Justin Taylor outlines Obama’s Opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act HERE

UPDATE: Hotair.com discusses the issue HERE.

You can read more about Barack Obama’s record against the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act here.

Gianna was recently interviewed on Hannity and Colmes.

You can read more about Gianna Jessen’s story here:

Gianna Jessen does not quit. Giving up is not an option to her. Gianna has what she refers to as the “gift” of Cerebral Palsy. She weighed a mere 2 lbs at birth and the doctors said she would never be able to hold up her head, sit up, crawl or walk. She began to walk by the age of three years old with the help of leg braces and a walker.

Gianna doesn’t believe that her Cerebral Palsy takes away her life, but, rather, enriches it. . . she walks with a slight limp today and runs marathons. On April 30, 2005 she completed her first 26.2 mile marathon after running just over 7 hours and was presented with the coveted blank blank award! On April 23, 2006 she completed the London Marathon as well. She is now determined to run marathons all over the place, because she was never supposed to even walk!

Gianna understands the plight of orphans, being one herself. She was placed into the foster care system early on in life, eventually being taken into the loving home of a woman named Penny. Penny has been a mother to 56 foster children in her life. Gianna was later adopted by Penny’s daughter, making Penny Gianna’s grandmother. According to Gianna, Penny saved her life.

Gianna is a Christian. Her life was given to her by the grace of God. She shouldn’t be walking, but more miraculous still; she should not even be alive. Gianna’s biological mother was 17 when she had a saline abortion in her third trimester. Many Americans don’t realize it is legal to have an abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy. After being burned alive for approximately 18 hours in the womb from the saline solution, Gianna was delivered alive in a Los Angeles County abortion clinic. Her medical records state, “born during saline abortion”…this is what caused her Cerebral Palsy.

Gianna’s travels and experiences have led her all over the world. Her life has been covered by many major news media outlets, including, most recently, the BBC News and World Radio, Sky News, and The Good Morning Show in England, reaching many people with a message of hope and conviction. In November 2005, Gianna spoke in several colleges all over Ireland and in December of the same year, spoke at a meeting held at the House of Commons in London. She has returned to England this year to speak in several parochial and public high schools. Gianna’s audiences include: churches - church youth crusades and women’s ministry retreats; various corporations as a motivational speaker; secular and Christian youth organizations and schools – middle school age through college, as well as several times before Congress - most recently having her testimony read before the Supreme Court in Carhart v. Gonzales

Now consider Sarah Palin’s position — both her story and her gifts. Her story demolishes, in a way no syllogism could, the central appeals of the pro-aborts.

Wilson continues…

Jonah Goldberg at National Review exulted that Sarah Palin was put on earth for two reasons — to kill caribou and kick butt. And she’s “all out of caribou.” Allowing for how much fun such exuberant hyperbole is, social conservatives might still wonder if she presents something of a challenge to their ideals of social order. And she might. She might not. Let’s talk about that.

But in the meantime, we must not overlook the fact that she presents an absolutely devastating challenge to the feminist narrative for women, and there are no mights involved. Here is a woman who (for the sake of principle) has refused to sacrifice those things which feminists insist (in principle) must be sacrificed so that women can reach their “full potential.” As a result of refusing the central dogma of their feminism, she might well become the first woman president. That’ll do something to your little leftist narrative. Feminism has never been about advancing the cause of women. This reveals, as few other things could, that it has been about advancing the cause of commie women.

Granting that Sarah Palin does not look like June Cleaver, she looks a lot less like Hillary or Gloria Steinem. And, despite the differences, I can imagine Sarah and June having a very pleasant lunch together. If she tried to take Hillary or Gloria out shopping (for motorcyles, say) and a spot of lunch afterwards, all I can envision is stoney silences and a lot of glaring . . . and not from Sarah, who would be chatting happily. Sarah Palin ruffles the hair of some conservatives, but they can always comb it again. Doug Phillips will be all right in a couple days. In contrast, when it comes to the vampirism of the feminist left, let’s just call her Buffy. They won’t be all right in a couple of days.

Wilson also points out that the threat to the left lies not only in the person of Sarah Palin, but also in the voice of Sarah Palin and the ability of her voice to soar above liberal bobble-headed propagandist media.

The second thing is that she clearly has the ability to speak over the bobble-heads of the anointed media darlings, and take her business straight to the American people. And this is where the really potent threat to Roe lies. If she speaks on this subject, she does do in a way consistent with the Word of God, and she does so with personal authority. She obviously cannot speak with authority on the subject of how to keep your daughters from becoming pregnant out of wedlock. But she can speak with authority on how difficult circumstances of our own making do not ever justify componding the mess with a murder.

She can say that having made a sinful or foolish choice as a woman is not a foundation for striking at womanhood itself. The establishment feminists have gone one step beyond Lady Macbeth. When she cried out, “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,” she at least knew what her rebellion was and called it by its right name. In their high impudence, feminists have rebelled against the life-giving nature of woman, and have done so in the name of women. Sarah Palin blows all of that away, and she does not do it by means of a law or a court decision. That, God willing, will follow — but it cannot come first.

Jim Jordan has pointed out that the task of man was the protect and guard the Garden (Gen. 2:15). The task of woman was to bear, protect and guard the Child (Gen. 3:15). Independent of legislation, we now have someone of the national stage who is capable of addressing American women directly, and inviting them to return to something fundamental. Lady Wisdom says that all who hate her love death (Prov. 8:32-36). Sarah Palin is now in a position to say to the American people that to be a woman of death is to deny being a woman at all, and that repentance means turning around. Before Roe can die in the courts, the Abimelech in the hearts of the people will have to die. And before he can die there, a woman will have to throw a millstone from the top of the tower.

I believe that this may well be what is happening. I may be wrong, but I don’t believe so. And if it plays out this way, I will bless the name of the Lord — the God of Eve, the God of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel, the God of Tamar, the God of Deborah and Jael, the God of a nameless woman at the top of a tower, may her descendents be forever blessed, the God of Rahab, the God of Ruth, the God of Bathsheba, and the God of Mary. And I will honor the God who gave us Sarah.

We all expect the attacks over the next weeks will aim at both the person and voice of Governor Palin.  The left will seek to deconstruct and objectify the person of Governer Palin in the eyes of the American people and forge associations with lies and half-truths.  They will seek to discredit her voice in any way possible.  I believe the attacks will prove ineffective and that she will fly above them.

CJ Mahaney shares an idea of how to plan to read and study.

John Bunyan on the Gospel.

Son of Hamas leader embraces Christianity.

CNN: Barack Obama’s opposition to Born Alive Act:

Obama gets his twords wisted in Bristol, Virginia.

Crucial: How to get rid of a bomb.

We would be wise not to remember this day in mere sentimental tones; we had enough of that kind of superficial response in the immediate aftermath of the shootings last year. We ought not to say this year (as some said last year), “Well, 32 people are now in heaven trying to explain to God what a Hokie is.” We ought not to compare this year (as some did last year) the murder of 32 students on a college campus with the killing of elephants for ivory. We also ought not to stand up this year (as many did last year) and scream out “Let’s go Hokies” at the top of our lungs.

The media loved these things last year, and they will likely love them this year too. But that really is too bad, for part of healing from a tragedy is examining the meaning of the tragedy. And examining the meaning of the tragedy necessarily requires us to stare at the truth even when it hurts. We can say that 32 people are in heaven trying to explain to God what a Hokie is, but the problem is that this is not true.

Therefore, exactly what we ought to do one year later is remember and reflect honestly and truthfully. We are no longer in the middle of events unfolding; we are looking back at things already unfolded. We have altered the look of our front-page in remembrance of a tragic day, and we will spend this day and several following days reflecting upon and discussing various truths related to this tragedy. We hope you will pause and reflect with us.

Examine, for instance, this exchange between commenter EJDolbow and myself:

Me: It’s amazing how a website page that says, “coming soon” can compel such animosity. Sheesh.

EJDolbow: Mike Huckabee damaged the Republican Party. He needs to go away and stay away.

I might interject that perhaps the current Republican party orthodoxy might need to be damaged. But that is another discussion. Continuing,

Me: But, one thing is for certain: I thought conservative not only supported, but advocated, divesrity of ideas in the public arena. So why are some many self-proclaimed conservatives suggesting that “[h]e needs to go away and stay away?”

EJDolbow: The reason he needs to go away is because he is attaching himself like a sucker to this party. If he wants to split and start the Party of Pastors, that would be great.

I said in following comments that it is a bedrock principle of Conservative thought that the diversity of ideas should not only be defended, but advocated and advanced as well. What the particular commenter I have highlighted, as well as several others not highlighted, have suggested is that Huckabee needs to go away. To be fair, they probably do not really mean that he should literally go away (as in get out of politics), but I wonder what they really do mean?

On the show yesterday, Dobson declined to elaborate whether he would support any of the three candidates running for President, but he did say that he would participate in the November elections because other offices besides the Presidency will be on the ballot. True to form, Sean Hannity tried to warm Dr. Dobson to a McCain presidency by trying to alleviate Dobson’s concerns about McCain’s social positions. Hannity told Dobson that just a few weeks ago John McCain pledged to support both the marriage and pro-life planks of the Republican platform.

But should this alleviate the concerns of social conservatives? I do not believe so. Let’s first examine the relevant exchange between Sean Hannity and John McCain.

HANNITY: And I think one of the areas that came up the most is would you leave the pro-life language in the platform and the marriage amendment in the platform?

MCCAIN: Yes. But as you know, I believe that the states should make these decisions on the marriage amendment. I am a Federalist and I believe that states like mine and other states that we should amend our state constitutions, and I will stick to that position until such time, if ever, a higher court says that my state or another state has to recognize the other status — another status of marriage.

I am committed to maintaining the unique status of marriage between man and woman. I think it can best be accomplished, and in keeping with my federalist philosophy that states should do as much as possible to have that done at the state level. But if it is overturned by a superior court, I will then obviously support the other path.

The Republican Party Platform calls for two amendments to the Constitution: a human life amendment and a marriage amendment. They read thusly:

We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and we endorse legislation to make it clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

We strongly support President Bush’s call for a Constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage, and we believe that neither federal nor state judges nor bureaucrats should force states to recognize other living arrangements as equivalent to marriage…Attempts to redefine marriage in a single state or city could have serious consequences throughout the country, and anything less than a Constitutional amendment, passed by the Congress and ratified by the states, is vulnerable to being overturned by activist judges.

John McCain has acquired the reputation of being a “straight talking maverick.” I will not object to the label; I will only say that if straight talking is a virtue, it nevertheless is no virtue to “straight talk” out of both sides of one’s mouth. Hannity’s question was very carefully crafted in order to ensure that John McCain would not have to say that he actually supports the pro-life and marriage planks of the GOP platform. Hannity pulled this off by asking him whether he would leave the language of those issues intact in the platform. The fact is that John McCain does not support either a human life amendment or a federal marriage amendment. Consider McCain’s response to Hannity, for example. After saying that he would not seek to change the marriage amendment language in the Republican platform, McCain goes on to say that he does not actually support what that platform says.

Is Sean Hannity really comfortable going on national television and suggesting to social conservatives that John McCain supports their cause? He does not. What has become clear about McCain is that his straight talk really is just double talk. But what is worse is Sean Hannity’s attempt to advocate McCain’s candidacy to social conservatives by suggesting that he really supports the issues. Is it really supposed to be some consolation that, even though McCain neither supports a human life amendment nor a federal marriage amendment, he nevertheless does not have a problem leaving the human life and marriage amendment language in the platform?