Last Thursday evening one of my wife‘s pre-K4 students was tragically killed. On Monday morning Jenni had to inform her students that their little friend would not be coming back to school. Here’s a lightly edited excerpt from a moving letter she sent to parents Monday afternoon.

I just wanted to give you a quick update on this morning and how gracious God was to us and to the children as we discussed KC’s loss.

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Last night I read CNN’s “Massacre at Virginia Tech: Promising, Extraordinary Lives Cut Short.” I’m still grieved by the last bit at the end of the article. Tom Brown, VT’s senior associate dean of students, gave this advice:

• “‘Please, please take care of yourself first. You cannot get your mind back on academics without spending some time taking care of yourselves,’ he said. ‘Go to where you need to go where you have the most love and the best support and I often say, where you can get the best hugs.’”

This advice is so sad because it is not sufficient for tragedy. It consists of nothing but empathy, which compounds the tragedy. What is so sad is that people without Christ really have no where to turn after tragedies like this. (And Christ was not mentioned at VT’s convocation.)

See here for some suggestions on how to respond to this tragedy. More generally, here are some related books that I’ve found especially helpful:

• D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil (2d ed.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006).
• Layton Talbert, Not By Chance: Learning to Trust a Sovereign God (Greenville, S.C.: Bob Jones University Press, 2001). I briefly reviewed this in 2002, and it is still posted on the Amazon.com page. (The review is a wee bit overstated.)

The title to this blog post may raise some eyebrows. Let me explain.

1. Joshua Bell (Wikipedia), a world-renowned classical violinist whom I had the pleasure of hearing live back in the late 1990s, is featured in a fascinating article by the Washington Post: “Pearls Before Breakfast: Can one of the nation’s greatest musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let’s find out.“
2. Scott Aniol’s post tipped me off to this article earlier this week, and Josh Harris’ post encapsulates my thoughts precisely. (See also Abraham Piper’s comments here and here.)
3. In short, the parallel is this:

• • Indoor rush-hour pedestrian traffic barely noticed one of the world’s finest violinists playing some of the world’s most beautiful music on one of the the world’s most expensive violins.
  • The world selfishly carries on with its own concerns and barely notices the universe’s Creator, Sustainer, and Goal. The gospel is offered freely to all without distinction, and multitudes reject it. Yet they are rejecting the all-powerful King of kings.

The parallel is stunning and sobering.