The SPU Shooting

   Yesterday afternoon someone walked into Seattle Pacific University and began firing a gun. You've probably heard about it by now. There are countless articles flying around the internet, and the reason I am choosing to share this is simple: It is so full of hope.

  What you are about to read was written by a young man named Ben Higashi. He is a student at SPU, and his words moved me to tears. He chose to share his experience throughout the events of yesterday afternoon, and I am so thankful that he did, as his perspective of clear, Christ-centered hope is a refreshing one in the light of genuine tragedy.

  I am sharing these words with his permission.

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The SPU Shooting

  I have so much to say and no idea where to start. When I first heard the news, when I was told we were in lockdown, I didn’t know what to expect. We’d been in lockdown before; it had just been a holdup at the 7-11 down the street. No one hurt, and it wasn’t that unusual for a gas station to be held up, so I wasn’t too worried.

  But the news came quickly. And it hit like a ton of bricks.

3:30PM
  It was a shooting. One, maybe two suspects. Otto Miller Hall. The number of reported victims was all over the place; it was difficult to get a definitive answer. With the lockdown well underway there was nothing to do. Nothing to do but wait, and hope, and pray.

  Social media exploded. I received multiple texts from people both on and off campus asking if I was alright. My floor mates and fellow students were all busy trying to alert their families and loved ones to reassure them that, yes, they were alright too.
  Uncertainty. Fear. No small amount of chaos.

  A friend and I pulled up news sites to follow exactly what was going on. The updates
came quickly, each and every one of them only adding to the suspense. I didn’t know
what to think. What could I think? I was glad to be safe. I was glad that it sounded like only a few people were harmed. I was furious that this happened in the first place.

  The news kept flooding in. Report after report, update after update, every local news station fixated on us and our situation. Slowly, we started getting more reliable
information. I thought that might help. It didn’t. It made it worse.

  One reported dead. That ton of bricks from before was starting to look kind of light by comparison. Three injured. One in critical condition. My anger flared some more.
Sadness decided to join the choir as well. With nothing but a computer screen in front of me as a distraction, I did my best to keep my dad and friends informed. There were still a lot of questions from those not on campus. Hell, there were a lot of questions from those of us on campus.

  Things eventually started slowing down. The news reports shifted from alarm to more relaxed status updates. The cameras switched from the crime scene to the hospital, where anywhere from four to eight people were undergoing treatment for wounds. Finally it came, the text telling us that the lockdown was over.

5:03PM
The lockdown was over, but the response certainly wasn’t. As we slowly started to
emerge from our rooms, we went from worrying in solitude to worrying as a group. The few students with TVs hooked up in their rooms became hotbeds of activity, people coming in and out trying to hear the latest on what exactly had happened, and was still happening.

  I sat and watched a while. A few eyewitness reports from people I recognized came on. A few of my friends who had been in the building at the time had their picture featured on a local news site. All unharmed, all back safe. But there were those who hadn’t made it out safely. More confirmations came in on the fatality. My stomach sank a little lower. The mayor spoke; he did fine. The university president spoke; he did amazing. It was over, but it wasn’t.

  It took a while, but we started to come together so we could go get dinner. It was a quiet, slow walk. The dining hall had been converted into a makeshift grief counseling center. Students were in groups, talking in front of the building. Or at least I thought they were talking; it felt a lot more like a heavy stunned silence.

  It wasn’t until we approached the dining hall that the reality of everything started to tear at me. The camera crews, the police officers lining the way, it was all so real. This had really happened. This was really happening. I thought about the people who had been inside, to whom this had become real far earlier than me. All along the walk to the dining hall, people in our group would stop to talk with people they knew. A lot of hugs and handshakes were exchanged, a lot of “I’m glad you’re all right” too.

  The meal was even quieter than the walk. Not a lot to say, a whole lot to think about. My thoughts started to wander. I thought about the friends whose safety I’d been so worried about. I thought about the shooter and what he must have been thinking. I thought about myself, and the class that I attended in that building, and how fortunate I was that my class hadn’t been that day. I thought about the wounded and the dead, and the dead’s family. All these thoughts, all so quickly. I checked the time, and was stunned to see that it had already been three hours since everything began.

7:00PM
  A prayer vigil was held in the field at the center of campus for those who wanted to
participate in some community fellowship. I attended with great urgency, mostly afraid of what I might feel if I spent too much time thinking about it alone. It was a remarkable sight. Dozens upon dozens of people started to flood in. The meeting had started in the local church, but it had quickly become evident that there wasn’t enough space for everyone present. People organized themselves into small groups, some of whom had never met each other before. Hand in hand, the prayers began. Fervent prayers for clarity, for peace, for the well-being of those in the hospital. I sat quietly, a hundred prayers a minute running through my mind.

  At some point, someone prayed “God, we don’t know what to feel right now.” I
understood the sentiment, but I also personally disagreed. I knew what to feel, and I was feeling it all at once. Anger, frustration, fear, sadness, some form of hatred that I hated feeling, all at once.

  As I sat listening to the prayers of others, I felt a push to change my thinking, to aim my As I sat listening to the prayers of others, I felt a push to change my thinking, to aim my prayers elsewhere. The conclusion I came to was a surprising one, or perhaps it was the obvious one I just didn’t want to think about at the time. Thankfulness. The most uncalled for reaction of all. I decided to give in and try it anyway; truth be told I was running out of other emotions to feel. So I prayed. I thanked God for my own safety. I thanked God for the safety of my friends. I thanked God for a university filled with people who knew they could turn to Him.

  As I prayed, for the first time since the whole thing started, I smiled a sincere smile.
It was brief, it was subtle, but it was there. The other emotions were still there too, but they couldn’t hold their own against the power of an ever-present God.
I remembered. I remembered that in everyone’s pain, God was still there, and had been there.

7:30PM
  It was at that moment I came back to finish writing this. If you were wondering what it was like around here from the first moments of the lockdown, to the final hours of the evening, hopefully I’ve given you a pretty good idea. I can only speak for myself, I was not in the building, and I didn’t witness the shooting. You have other news sources for that. To those of you who were here and know what I’m talking about, I hope you find something you can connect with in my experience to aid you in your own.

  My point in writing this is to help you know what it was like, and more importantly, to remind you to pray. I’m still praying as I’m writing this, and I expect to be praying for many day to come. I pray for the victims. I pray for the shooter. I pray for the university, and everyone who was affected. But most of all, I pray a prayer of thanks to God.
  Without Him, this would be nothing more than a horrible, senseless tragedy. With Him, there’s still hope in what can be a dark, dark world.