Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 7, 1995                   TAG: 9505100016
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: D-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SIFTING THROUGH THE RUBBLE

As the theological discussion on today's Commentary page reminds, these tragedies touched something in our core. The one event has entered our national history, the other our local.

The shock will recede, of course. It always does. A couple of weeks later, it already has begun to. Yet, even with the search for bodies in Oklahoma City ended, and the broken Roanoke church's embers cooled, we continue sifting through the rubble - looking not for miracles, just for meaning.

Unlike the bombing, the Roanoke calamity claimed no lives. The tragedy, of course, isn't nearly so great.

But a church, especially one so beautiful in structure and memory as First Baptist - one having so large a presence in the lives of so many good people, living and gone - is not built of brick and wood alone. It has been, observed First Baptist's pastor, Rev. Kenneth B. Wright, part of "a journey of faith." The fire wounded. The grief continues.

Both tragedies were rendered more poignant by their apparently homegrown cause.

Arabs didn't blow up federal workers and their children; the suspects are Americans. Nor is any sinister, mysterious conspiracy plotting from outside Gainsboro to blame, apparently, for First Baptist's burning. The suspects are local boys.

Both tragedies have occasioned efforts not only to grope for explanations, but also, unfortunately, to politicize public reaction, to spread wide the implied culpability, to further divide and inflame opinion.

As if criticizing the feds or gun control were equivalent to planting bombs. As if the inferno that devoured Roanoke's historic landmark represented only the latest sign of official neglect or even malign intent toward a neighborhood broken up decades ago by so-called urban renewal.

At sea with sadness, it is natural to seek demons. It is better to cling to lifeboats: facts, and each other.

Facts include those painstakingly gathered by authorities probing the Oklahoma and Roanoke disasters and seeking those actually, as opposed to implicitly, responsible. It turns out Moslems (like federal employees) aren't always the bad guys; neither are city officials.

Facts, as opposed to sentimental impulse, also should guide long-term responses to these events. The nation needs to examine carefully, for example, the costs of rushing to discourage dissent, or to increase powers and decrease oversight of federal law-enforcement authorities.

First Baptist and supporters also will need to weigh facts in examining the feasibility of restoring the church. More than a decade ago, the congregation built and occupied a new church a block away. Artists and dramatists have leased the old building with the idea of turning it into a cultural center. The city helped maintain the structure with grant money. Wishing that the place hadn't burned won't bring it back.

The other thing worth clinging to is each other. Never mind the stuff issuing from politicians and talkmeisters. We've had enough division, enough scapegoating, enough hate. In horror at the loss, in sympathy for the suffering, sad events can help bring people together.

No one can feel the grief of those directly affected by the bombing and the fire. Nor can the shock of these events be long sustained. But if we all can recognize that our community has been injured and diminished, surely we can share the search for redemption.