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Something dreadfully wrong has happened.
Something beyond our reasoning or imagining.
Even those of us who did not know Danielle struggle for sense, for a clue, for even the slightest ray of understanding.
We struggle under the immensity, the impossibility, the nonsensical nature of whatever it is that brings us here.
There is nothing that makes sense of our being here.
This is the beginning of a semester, not far from the beginning of a year.
It does not make sense having to come to terms with something so finite, so mortal.
This is a room in a building where on normal days at normal times, Danielle, her classmates and friends were among the students assembling with professors — to lecture, to learn, to do what college is meant to be.
That all makes sense. Our being here now does not.
This is a time in life in which for so many of us most of life has yet to be lived — it is more about what might be than what has been.
Memories are yet to be realized, not remembered.
It does not make sense to think otherwise.
For some of us, there are faith convictions that guide us in times such as these; of hope and life even in the trauma of despair and demise.
There are words that are often casually, maybe too routinely, spoken about hope and belief in eternal life, about another place, about rejoicing in something beyond our human comprehension.
But even for those of us who have such convictions, this is a time when we struggle to imagine, to comprehend and consider the risks of hope.
This is a time when the pain is too new, the grief is too raw, when nothing makes sense.
And maybe all we can do is gather with one another — strangers and friends — and maybe what makes the most sense is for those who’ve known Danielle to remember her, what you appreciated and admired, what made you laugh, what good she brought out in you, what made sense in her living. Maybe that’s all we can do now to try to make any sense of where we find ourselves today.
Remarks by the Rev. Tom Lindner delivered at a memorial service at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point on Tuesday. Lindner is pastor at Newman University Catholic Parish at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and was associate pastor at St. Joseph the Workman Cathedral in La Crosse from 1995 to 1997.
