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“When personal trauma is not healed, aggression and increased violence may be the result,” says Virginia Foley, the widow of a U.S. government official who was assassinated in Jordan in 2002. “This is true of societies as well as individuals.”

Virginia and Larry Foley in Jordan in 2001. Foley was on assignment for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) when he became the victim of a terrorist attack on Oct. 28, 2002. Virginia Foley credits her STAR experience in 2006 as a major step in a long-term healing process. Read more …

Foley credits STAR

The service closed with candlelighting and opportunity for the campus community to pray individually and in small groups, remembering the Virginia Tech community’s tremendous loss in the wake of the Monday morning shootings on their campus, just three hours distance from EMU.

Campus ministries staff and pastoral assistants were available to minister to persons as needed.

Opportunities for Prayer and Support

• Watch the WHSV News Video Coverage of the Prayer Ceremony

  
  EMU will join other schools and organizations in observing a moment of silence at 9:45 a.m. Monday, Apr. 23, marking the one-week anniversary of the Virginia Tech campus shootings and loss of 32 lives.

• Candlelight Prayer Vigil:
  A prayer vigil scheduled for Wednesday, April 18, as a response to the showing of Invisible Children (Uganda) will now include prayers for the greater Virginia Tech community. Please meet on the front lawn at 9:30 p.m.

• Hokie Hope Day:
  Friday is Hokie Hope Day across the nation. Wear maroon and orange all day in solidarity with the VA Tech students, faculty, staff, families and alum.

• Talk with the Pastor:
  Campus Pastor Brian Martin Burkholder will host the campus community on Wednesday, April 18, in the Northlawn residence hall from 4-5 p.m. for prayer and support for the Virginia Tech community, as well as any EMU community members who may have direct connections to people affected by the tragedy.

• Sign a Banner:
  Students, faculty and staff are invited to sign a banner for VT that will be hand-delivered to Tech’s campus. The banner will be on display for at least the first hour of Springfest on the front lawn. The greater campus communities of JMU, Bridgewater, and Blue Ridge Community College are also participating.

• EMU’s Counseling Center continues to be available to students, faculty and staff in need of support. Call (540) 432-4317 for more information.

Campus Responds

“We are deeply saddened by the events unfolding on Virginia Tech’s campus in Blacksburg, Va.,” wrote ²ÝÝ®ÉçÇø provost Dr. Beryl Brubaker in a campus communiqu

Lou Furman costumed himself as “Truth” by piling several hats atop his head, explaining “There are many truths.”

He and three colleagues

Bullets travel in circles – one side fires, another side reciprocates. Tom Fox

If you want to know the mind of the general public, you can do worse than go to the movies. Better yet, just watch the previews. They will tell you what the major studios think the American public wants to see.

War, not surprisingly, is a big topic in our upcoming winter entertainment. Whether the films portray conflicts that are historical (Master and Commander, The Alamo, The Last Samurai) or imaginary (The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The Matrix: Revolutions), they suggest that battles hold out the promise of big bucks.

On the surface, the preoccupation with war might seem strange given the increasing ambivalence and dissension surrounding the United States’ military involvement in Iraq. Aren’t movies and television supposed to provide an escape from the troubles and cares of the "real" world?

A closer look at the content of some of these trailers may help explain the appeal of the films they advertise – or at least what the studios think we might find appealing about them.

The first, most obvious similarity that all the conflicts in these films have in common is that the heroes, the ones who represent us, are heavy underdogs.

"Our enemy has more than twice our guns, more than twice our numbers," intones Captain Aubery (Russell Crowe) in the Master and Commander trailer. In both the Lord of the Rings trailer and the The Matrix: Revolutions, those involved in the formal, military conflict are convinced that they are hopelessly outmatched, yet determined to give their lives fighting to the end.

The Alamo trailer solemnly informs us that the Texans fighting in the fort were not soldiers, they were "husbands," "lawyers," "fathers" and "legends" who had to fight against "one of the most powerful armies ever assembled." The Last Samurai trailer begins with the main character, Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), as a part of a military army but ends with him charging on horseback, wielding a sword, against the guns that he used to use.

Another theme that most of these films have in common is that the main characters are fighting defensively rather than aggressively. Gondor is being besieged in The Lord of The Rings: The Return of the King; Zion is being invaded by an army of machines in The Matrix: Revolutions. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie are trying to save their homeland of Texas from Santa Anna