A Lesson in Dichotomies

For the second year, I am participating in Michigan's Student Council and National Honor Society Student Leadership Camp. And for the second time, I am caught in a dichotomy that makes me reevaluate basic truths. One basic truth is that life is random and cruel and violent and fragile and tenuous and too often--way too often--we are at the mercy of forces that drive us to our knees under their crushing strength. A tsunami destroys a village. A hurricane destroys a New Orleans. A gunman destroys the lives of everyone sitting in a Colorado movie theater last night. That is a very real side of life, and the emotional fall-out from that killing spree has just begun. Like the Columbine boys, James Holmes stole one more layer of innocence, of assumed safety, of hope. But as I sit here in a dorm room at Albion College, thinking about the hundreds of high school students about to descend upon us in all their hormonal glory, I cannot help but consider this other basic truth: people can be glorious. James Holmes was 24, and immediately after I read about his savage act, I watched six 24-year-olds intentionally, willingly, eagerly decide to sacrifice seven days of their summer to help grow student leaders. Where one decides to destroy, six decide to give. Where one acted for hate, six are acting for hope. It is this dichotomy, this extreme juxtaposition of evil and good that distills for me an even more basic truth: we have choices. Each day we choose to help or hurt, create or destroy, heal or harm. For one week, I am immersing myself in the positive. I am going to metaphorically swim in cheesey optimism and I am not going to apologize. I will sing, chant, question, and even cry this week. But in contrast to James Holmes, the 70+ adults and college students with me are going to create something positive. We're going to inspire the latent passion in Michigan's teen leaders, because “The young, free to act on their initiative, can lead their elders in the direction of the unknown" (Margaret Mead).