Virginia Tech

Babylon is fallen, baby
It’s haunted by hate birds
I’m talking about the United States of Babylon
The American Dream gone bad
Somebody change the channel!
It’s turned into a malevolent nightmare
In the land of the free and the home of the…

A is for Addicted
B is for Bored
C is for Consumer

You get the idea.

When success is equated with excess
The ambition for excess wrecks us
(A swift kick from Switchfoot)

And so we’re lost in space
(Danger, Will Robinson!)
My space, cyber space
Lonely place, lost grace

Most are just sad and empty
But some turn bad, and what was it?
“Just plain mean”
And so, mister, a sister (our sister) cries,
“He made the world weep”

A generation ago
Four dead in Ohio
It made you mad
You could protest
Even write a song

But 32 in Virginia?
You can’t write a song
You can only weep
32 lost and wept over by those beyond console
And the thirty-third lost to the black hole
The black hole that took over his soul

Hell

Heaven is not a distant place
Heaven is a different dimension
Heaven is closer than you think
Heaven is closer than your next breath
Heaven is a kingdom of a different kind
Heaven’s kingdom has come
To a thin place near you

A thin place
The interface between God’s space and my space
The sacred space of God’s grace

Hope

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
Audacious hope subverting the tyranny of the status quo
Absurd hope almost too embarrassing to talk about
Daring hope challenging the grandiose pretension of the present
Divine hope that alone can enable us to smile upon the future
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

Repent, the beginning is near!

-Blind Man at the Gate