Nothing But Anger
I know I should be feeling sympathy and confusion about what happened at Virginia Tech on Monday. But all I am feeling is anger about what happened to Ryan “Stack” Clark and 30 others who died in Blacksburg. It’s almost like I know Ryan — because I have walked in his footsteps as a resident assistant.
By all the accounts I have read thus far, Ryan, a 22-year-old senior, was the kind of guy who held people together, the responsible guy on campus. He had a 4.0 GPA with majors in biology and English and was a native of Martinez, GA. Here’s a profile of Ryan and the victims: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/17/vtech.shooting.victims/index.html
Apparently, he was trying to keep peace and work a problem situation between students when he was killed by the gunman at Ambler Johnston Hall.
Resident assistants have a tough job — to serve the students that live in their dorm, keep order and keep the peace, all for the payment of board and books. You calm down drunks. You settle hallway disputes. You take care of diabetic students who forget to take their medication. You comfort the depressed. You care for the lonely who are stuck at school on the weekends by themselves. You help the international students figure out how to use the washer and dryer. It’s just a thankless job for pennies an hour.
I have been punched by a bodybuilder. I did my best to talk a guy on my floor out of suicide. I tried to convince some friends of mine in Kappa Alpha Psi that practicing stepdowns at 3 a.m. is a problem for the residents below them in the dorm. But I never had anyone pull a gun on me and I never had my life threatened.
You don’t become a resident assistant it for the money. You do it because you love people. Without going out on a limb, I think I can tell you Ryan loved people, too.
Ryan Clark is dead, and I can’t tell you when I have been more angry. There are no easy answers. There is just anger because there is this much evil in a world that Jesus died to save. Nothing but anger.
About the Author
Jim is the director of Young Adult Ministry at LifeWay Christian Resources. He has worked for the past 11 years in a variety of roles, ranging from marketing to publishing to Internet development. Before being called to full-time ministry, he worked as a reporter and editor at Alabama’s capital city daily newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, for 10 years. Prior to coming to LifeWay, he also worked as an adult-in-missions editor at the Brotherhood Commission in Memphis. Jim and his wife Tammy have been married for 23 years and have two sons, Spenser, 17, and Ethan, 10.
There have been 2 replies so far
I wonder if Ryan loved Jesus the way he must have loved people. I hope so. The Bible says our lives are but a vapor (James 4:14) anyway, while eternity is … well, eternal.
The anger that hit me was how the devil must have been tormenting the student who became a murderer. It makes me wonder if I’m noticing those people in my own life, or if I’m allowing the Holy Spirit in me to do anything about it.
1 | Lexi
Tuesday, April 17, 2007, at 4:41pm
Levi,
Great points. I am hoping Ryan and the others were all believers in Christ.
We had a message from a Virginia Tech campus minister this morning telling us that one of the victims, a graduate student named Brian, was a part of their ministry and we know for sure where he is today.
Your thought about the murderer is a sobering one. It makes me think of the scene from the movie “Ghost” where the killer is dragged off by demons.
We don’t often want to think of the perpetrator and his eternal destiny. For most of us, I think it’s too horrible a picture of eternity and we just can’t get our minds around something that kind of hopeless torment.
2 | Jim Johnston
Wednesday, April 18, 2007, at 10:01am
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