"I'm running the wrong way."

If you happen to be reading this and you don't live in the area, earlier this week some asshat in a trenchcoat walked into a lecture hall at NIU and started shooting, leaving several dead and eventually killing himself. Now, DeKalb is only a half hour away from here so everyone has some kind of connection to the University. Everybody knows someone who was there, or should have been there, or a friend's friend who saw the whole thing, or whatever. But I've got to tell you, I don't mean to be cruel, but I just can't wrap my mind around that kind of situation. The blatantly senseless violence. The emotional wreckage. The lack of clear motive. Even though it happened 30 minutes away, when I hear first hand reports, I still kind of glaze over. There's nothing to say, there's nothing to do. I can't relate to this on any level, nor would I attempt to cheapen the experience by acting like it.

So as folks around here have been talking things out, I've just kind of been, well, letting them talk it out. I try to actively listen, but for the most part I just sit there zoned out. I've been emotionally distant throughout the whole ordeal, but that's not my personality and I know it. So I've been waiting for something to sink in. Something to click. Something to push me out of shock and onto the next phase of healing and understanding.

This morning in the chiropractor's office, I found it. I was sitting in the reception area sifting through the Rockford paper, noting how the local media was handling this whole thing. Students shocked... police acted... parents relieved... school responded... No offense, but you could pretty much write these stories beforehand and just fill in the names and numbers after it actually happened. As I drifted over the headline "As Students Fled Danger, Medic Ran to Give Help" I slowed down to indulge in a 'Hero story' no doubt about some emergency responder who jumped out of an ambulance and acted supernaturally. But I was wrong.

Ok... just to give you some background info, I am a total chump for heroics. I went to a conference once where one of the speakers read clips out of some "Winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor" book for about 15 minutes out of his 20 minute lecture. It was absolutely riveting. I was completely absorbed by all the selfless and monumentally stupid things men do for God and Country. It really only takes one story about a guy charging a machinegun nest to bring me to tears anyway, Band of Brothers made sure of that.

So I start reading this article, and I get to the part about how Jeff Merkel, a Navy medic who is now at NIU on the GI Bill, called his wife and I quote;

“I told her, ‘I’m running the wrong way,’ but I had to,” he said. “I know how to do things. I’ve seen this kind of violence.”

And I lost it. Yes Jeff. If your gut reaction was to run toward an unknown threat to assess damages and help victims, the fact that you "Know how to do things" is a ridiculous understatement. I sit here wondering if I would have even had the presence of mind to duck and crawl out of the auditorium, let alone help anyone. I can't relate to this kind of heroism any more than I can relate to the tragedy or the insanity that brought it about, but it touched me when the other two hadn't. And "running the wrong way" has such tremendous spiritual implications I could write a series of blogs on that phrase alone.

So I'm sitting there unsuccessfully trying not to cry and needless to say, that is when I get called into the chiropractor's office. Fantastic. My doc walks in perusing my chart and says, "Hey Karaoke King, How are you doing today?" And I'm like, "JUST FINE! WHY? I mean **wipe-wipe** I'm fine. Well, my back doesn't hurt. **sniff** How are you? Say, are those my X-rays?"
"I'm good," He responded, "Why don't you lie down and let me take a look at your back."

Good Chiropractors know where to push, great ones know where not to.