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Life Glistens Beauty

Seeking Light Amid Darkness

By Chris Dunmire, CurrentLiving.com

na•ture n 1 : the inherent quality or basic constitution of a person or thing

While many people were celebrating beauty, love, and passion on Valentine's Day last month, February 14, 2008, was the date of yet another college campus massacre in our country. This time, for me, it was not buffered by distance states away. This tragedy took place in Dekalb, Illinois, a nearby college town close to where I live — the home to Northern Illinois University (NIU). Five students were killed. We have been a state of mourning ever since.

Weeks earlier in a different Chicago suburb, Tinley Park, another killing spree took place inside a Lane Bryant clothing store. A man, still at large as I write, coldly and selfishly took away the lives of five women and tore through the hearts and psyches of countless others by his atrocious act.

I am left deeply saddened at this senseless violence. Shocked. Angry. Frustrated. I want justice for all of these innocent people. I don't want this man or anyone else with the intent to harm to have the freedom to disrupt any more lives. I want peace in this world. I want each human to be at peace within themselves.

You can Google the news for more information about either of these headlines because I won't write another word about the tragic details. In fact, I've been conflicted about writing about something so heavy here at CurrentLiving.com because of the shadow it casts on the site's focus, "Celebrating Joy and Spiritual, Creative Living."

But I'm not living with my head in the sand either. The reality of living on this planet with others is by design constructed with polarity pairs: the yin/yang, light/dark, happy/sad, etc., so after a few starts and stops, I chose to proceed with this piece to facilitate my own healing and to address an honest observation: Some things will happen that will impact our ability to experience joy. At least temporarily.

Why, God, why?

I am always deeply pained when desperation in other human beings lashes out — explodes — taking casualties with it. I have been in a state of grief for weeks over these recent tragedies, moving through my days repeatedly asking hard questions about the point of everything. Through one lens I'm seeing that life/death can all come down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. September 11. A college lecture hall. An upscale clothing store. A war-torn country. It doesn't matter how "good" of a person you are, how strong your faith and devotion is, or how upright a life you lead. On a very basic level, living has literally turned into surviving, even if you're just going out to buy a new sweater to wear to church tomorrow.

This is where people of assured faith come in to help me "see" the reasons for all of this happening. They say it's the issue of Universal Sovereignty between good and evil. For 25 years I lived in a strong, faithful perspective, until I came to a multi-layered crisis of conscience that I still can't resolve in my own heart. I don't know if my grief is just too impenetrable right now or if I'm just tired of asking "why?" and hoping the curtain will finally close on this divine comedy to ready for the next act — the one (wo)mankind has been looking forward to since the fall harvest in the Garden of Eden.

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© 2008 Chris Dunmire, CurrentLiving.com. All rights reserved. (03/12/08) Please do not duplicate this article elsewhere without my permission.

About the Author | More by Chris Dunmire
Chris Dunmire is creatively engaged in life as an artist, writer, humorist, and publisher of the popular Creativity Portal Web site. She's trained as a creativity coach with Eric Maisel, Ph.D., and Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching founder Jill Badonsky. Chris develops Web-based projects and playbooks to encourage creative thinking, artistic expression, and imaginative play in people of all ages. Learn more about Chris's books at CreativeSlush.com.