Page 8 I Thursday, April 19,2007
OPINIONS
The Pendulum
Editorial
The Pendulum seeks to inspire, entertain and inform the Eton community by providing a voice
for students and faculty as well as a forum for the meaningful exchange of ideas.
In times of tragedy, remember to hope
In the past weeks, tragedy has
touched our lives. First, the deatli of
Miss Effie, then Mike Foreman and
the mass shooting at Virginia Tech. It is
easy to be worn down by these events,
to become depressed, to lose sight of
the one thing that keeps us moving:
Hope.
In the Greek myth of Pandora’s box
where sickness, sorrow, destruction and
sadness, all the things that make life
hard, escape into the world. The one
entity that is left in the box and held
most dear is hope.
Hope is immensely important in
times such as now.
We may ask where is the hope now,
how can we, in a world where students
kill each other, and friends end their
own lives, remain hopeful? How do we
stay optimistic when everything falls
apart?
The truth is, we don’t know. It’s
hard, but it has to be done. We can’t tell
you how to keep your head above
water, or how to smile when every part
of you wants to cry. Sometimes it’s just
too much. But we must hope, we must
keep looking up.
We should look at some of the les
sons we can learn from these tragedies.
Foreman was an inspiration to many.
Though he was not on this campus as
long as we wanted, he touched many
lives. At his memorial service, many
repeatedly said that he was what they
wanted to be, he was the person they
wish they could have emulated. Perhaps
we should strive to touch as many lives
as he did.
Miss Effie, who worked at Elon for
many years died last Monday. She was
a woman who touched everyone’s lives,
whether we know it or not. We will all
miss her.
The most recent tragedy, the shooting
at Virginia Tech, is the worst mass
shooting in U.S. history. There is great
sorrow and our hearts should go out to
that community. However, there is hope
we can gamer from it.
Liviu Librescu, an engineering pro
fessor at Virginia Tech, died protecting
his students. While the shooter, Cho
Seung-Hui attempted to force his way
into Librescu’s clasroom, the professor
held the door closed with his own body,
ordering his students to jump out of the
windows. Librescu was shot several
times through the door and died.
Librescu was not only a professor, he
was also a Holocaust survivor. One can
scarcely imagine the courage it took to
stand in front of the door to protect his
students, but we must remember men
like Librescu who gave their lives to
protect those around them.
VT Students Matt Green and
Matthew Lewis were on the scene as
members of the Virginia Tech Rescue
Squad, originally called to the scene to
help a student who had fallen out of his
loft, but upon arriving at the scene, they
were alerted to the first two casualties
in West Ambler Johnston Hall.
After the shootings at Norris Hall,
both men worked to save the lives of
their fellow students. When interviewed
by Fox News, both men said that “the
training just kicked in, we didn’t think
about what was going on until after
wards. That’s when we started to reflect
on the situation.”
Despite tragedy, such lessons of
heroism should endure. While we
should never forget the tragedy that is
involved in such an event, we must
remember those that rose to action
when the situation was dire. We must
always remember those men and
women who are willing to sacrifice for
others.
In times such as these, it is easy for
us to see the world as a horrible place,
full of danger and foreboding. It is easy
to see the world as everything that
escaped Pandora’s box, with all the
sickness, despair and war.
People do horrible things to each
other, and the world looks like a lonely
and sad place.
We must hope, because when we
witness such tragedy, hope is the one
thing that can keep us going.
In times such as these, while remem
bering the lost and the dead, remember
hope, remember that the world is still a
good place, that people do good things,
that men and women, who appear ordi
nary, have the capacity for great and
heroic acts. Each of us has that capaci
ty. Humanity has that capacity.
The world isn’t a horrible place,
humanity isn’t evil. People are good,
and we need to remember that, we need
to hope for that when we don’t have
proof.
When tragedy strikes, as it has done
in the past week, clutch that hope and
keep it with you. Sometimes it’s the one
thing that gets us by.
It is easy to give in to despair, but it
requires more courage to remain strong
and hope.
The Pendulum
Elon University
Elon, N.C.
Established 1974
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