Grants

Blacksburg Reflections
By Allison Graff
Calvin College

This series of six reflection paragraphs was written by Allison Graff. You can also read her feature story on the Blacksburg grant project.

1. Some of us arrived in Blacksburg, Virginia late on Saturday evening, long after the sun had set beneath the western hills. During the 40-minute drive from Roanoke, we felt the hills sloping and cresting beneath the wheels of our rental car, but we could not see them. It wasn't until the next morning, as we traveled from our hotel to Cassell Coliseum on Virginia Tech's campus, that we met the geographical landscape of Blacksburg for the first time. The hills—covered in trees at the very height of their autumnal beauty—surrounded the town on all sides protectively, making Blacksburg feel like an enclave. It makes one wonder how such a horrific feat of violence could happen in this peaceful-seeming place. A place with air so crisp and skies so blue, with gold and red-swathed hills, how could terror penetrate it? The reality is surreal, unimaginable—especially for visitors who weren't here on April 16. And yet for those who were here on that day, it must have felt like being unhemmed from the usually-protective landscape. Was anyone able to pray with the Psalmist who said in Psalm 121, 'I lift up my eyes to the hills—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth'?

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