By all accounts, George Sodini was a seemingly rational and reasonably successful 48 year-old man. He worked as a software program writer for a large law firm. He enjoyed his work and had recently been promoted. His lifestyle did not reflect any sort of drug or alcohol abuse. In fact, until the last couple of months, he hadn’t consumed any alcohol in twenty years. He never married, and he owned his own home where he had lived for the past 10 years. From the picture I have seen of him, he was nice looking man, physically fit and well-dressed. Yet, George Sodini was identified as the gunman in last Tuesday night's (August 4, 20090 deadly LA Fitness health club shooting in Collier Township, Pennsylvania. His own words conveyed via his blog (an internet site where one’s personal writings can be posted and read by all) reveal a man struggling profoundly with his own sense of isolation. His blog chronicled his torturous life as he wrote about the loneliness and frustration he felt at not having any kind of a relationship with people, especially female companionship. His writing, as was his life, was filled with darkness and contradictions. Tragically, he fatally shot three women and injured nine others in his shooting spree before turning the gun on himself, taking his own life.
The words of the writer of Ecclesiastes are stamped all over his life and writings: “Vanity of Vanity, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (1:2-3). It is impossible for most of us to comprehend the struggles of people who suffer in such depraved silence from a sense of not belonging or of being needed. For Sodini, his perception of life was clearly one marked without meaning or purpose as defined by the word vanity. I am making no excuses for Sodini. To the contrary, I am pointing out that without a real relationship with God based on faith and a proper understanding of His word, Sodini’s empty life shows the darkness of the abyss to which evil can fill the life and lead the soul of man.
When I read Sodini’s writing, I wonder what an encounter with a faithful Christian would have done for Him. Perhaps nothing, but then again, perhaps everything, and four people would be alive and nine others would not have been injured. I am reminded that the power of the gospel, lived out in our lives and shared with others, has “wonder working power” to transform the vilest person we might ever meet, even me! (Romans 1:16; 1 Timothy 1:12-17) Always, let your light shine – you never know the darkness into which it may shine leading others to the Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment