Responding Inappropriately to Tragedy

Yesterday, I was talking with some friends briefly about the horrors of the Aurora shooting. A waitress was nearby, and reacted by saying something along the lines of "That's the hype of the day. There's always something crazy going on in Colorado." This deeply bothered me. A massacre in a movie theater cannot, and should not, be reduced to "the hype of the day." When we find ourselves responding to large-scale catastrophes with insufficient solemnity, then perhaps we have negligently allowed our sensibilities and emotions to become warped--and flattened-- by a culture infatuated with entertaining itself into oblivion. If we, rather, immerse ourselves in the good, the true, and the beautiful, then tragedies like the one in Aurora will affect us as they should: as shocking, devastating evidence of a fallen world. Then, and only then, can we respond appropriately, weeping with those who weep, and caring for the affected souls.