May we poor grovelers
between faith and doubt,
The sun and north start lost,
and compass out,
The heart’s weak engine
all but stopped, the time
Timeless in this chaos of our wills –
That we must ask a theme, something to think,
Something to say, between dawn and dark,
Something to hold on to, something to love –
Medusa of the northern sky, shine upon us,
And if we fear to think,
then turn that fear to stone,
That we may learn unconsciousness alone;
But freeze not the uplifted prayer of hands
That hope for the unknown.

–from Conrad Aiken, “Time in the Rock II”

This poem was a Unison Reading at Unity Temple on February 3rd. It really made me think, and I think it is rather appropriate after the NIU incident. There was no way to predict this one. He was by all accounts normal person and an honor student. He got a little squirrelly over the last couple of weeks, by some accounts, but there was little chance of the severity of what he’d do would be predicted.

To me it talks about the unknown, and if everything humans use to orient themselves disappear we are left only with the unknown. The things we use to orient ourselves can come and go. The Unknown will be there forever and always. We can always see the Unknown is there, even if the Known outnumbers it. This event, was an Unknown until it happened. There was no real way to stop it. There was no way to know until the damage started. DeKalb and the campus police, I feel, did a great job.

We cannot fear the unknown, or we will never be able to cope with it. Thinks will happen good, and bad, that we will not expect, all we can do is respond. That is what happened here. The event was horrible, but they did have a plan. They did respond. They did not fear the unknown they planned for it. That is what needs to be done.

That is how you handle the Unknown.

My Condolences to the families of those killed and injured. My well wishes to those injured for a fast recovery. <3

~Zero