Time Passages

I don't typically go this long between posts.

I've just been reluctant to move Caleb's sunshiny picture down the page, but I either have to stop posting, or time must move on.

One reason I haven't wanted to change it is that I had a very challenging mid-term Friday that I spent the week studying feverishly for, and the post provided a pleasant image for me to look at during study breaks - a refreshing reminder of a simpler time.

I also kind of wanted to keep his happy picture up because there is so much sadness and strife in the world - the Iraq War, Darfur, Afghanistan, the shootings at Virginia Tech, difficulty nearer by in my former church home, and other issues large and small in many places nearby and far away - lots of hurt - lots of struggle. It was nice to open my blog and see a child's drawing of a spring day complete with waterfall, butterfly, bright sunshine, blue sky, a hill with a cave to explore, and the requisite hole in the tree as a home for some creature to live in.

As I've pondered "moving on," I received the latest issue of Time Magazine, and, as I looked at the cover of the new issue containing images of the Jamestown Colony in celebration of its 400th year and compared it with the cover of the issue from the week before containing faces of people killed in the Virginia Tech shootings, I wondered if it was hard for the people at Time to put out the new issue.
How is it possible to move on in just one week from something so profound. It almost seems publication should have stopped for a period of time, because that news was so weighty that it feels it deserved a "moment of silence" - perhaps a few weeks with no new publication - just to let us pause respectfully and soberly.

Getting a new issue gave me a feeling that VT was last week's news and now we move on.

We do move on, as we always must, and yet there are individuals and families who will never really move on and who will never really be the same because of this event. So, as I write this, I think of all who were personally impacted by that event, and I desire to remember and honor them with my thoughts and my words.