So I caught wind today that Beliefnet.com has put forward a list of 10 people for recognition as the Most Inspiring Person of 2007. And it happens that one of the ten, and currently the public’s choice for most inspirational, is Liviu Librescu, a Virginia Tech engineering professor killed in the shooting at my school last April. In the aftermath, I was assigned to write a memorial piece on this man who I didn’t know existed until April 16 but whom I have come to respect and honor deeply.
He was a committed family man who always chatted with department members about their children. He was a quiet, reassured friend who was demanding as a professor but open with his heart and liberal with his time when student’s would poke their heads inside his office door. I was constantly reminded that the somewhat dour photograph of him that is popular online doesn’t do justice to the light in this man’s heart.
I began to understand what this man did when I spoke to an elderly colleague of his. I asked him whether Librescu was a hero. The answer was, without hesitation, no.
He wasn't trying to undervalue what Librescu did. He just meant that there are no heroes. There is only doing what is right, what is necessary, what bubbles up from inside you at the crucial juncture -- or not.
As Caroline Merrey, a senior engineering major in Librescu’s class, put it:
"We heard gunshots in the hall and as they were coming closer a student stuck his head out the door and saw what was happening. The next thing I know I'm leaning out the window and Professor Librescru was against the door."
There was no time to think, and so Librescu acted. And he acted magnificently.
Why is Liviu Librescu inspiring?
For me, it is because what he did inside Norris Hall just under eight months ago was to make it clear that every man and woman has the ability to do what is right, from college students to 77-year-old Holocaust survivors. He is not inspiring because he was a hero, because he was ordained for greatness. He is inspiring because he was, in so many ways, every man, and what he did proved that even in the face of great destruction ordinary people can remind the world that concepts like fraternity and grace and love aren’t outdated concepts mired in religious tomes and drowning in philosophical treatises but a real part of our lives.
Comments (1)
Great essay. I especially liked this- "He is inspiring because he was, in so many ways, every man, and what he did proved that even in the face of great destruction ordinary people can remind the world that concepts like fraternity and grace and love aren’t outdated concepts mired in religious tomes and drowning in philosophical treatises but a real part of our lives."
My question is why does that have to happen only in times of great destruction? seems to me that if it happened, in much smaller forms, in everyday life, we'd be in much better shape than we are currently. And I believe it's out there. I really do.. just underground. Hopefully someone will get the message.
Posted December 1, 2007 7:08 PM
Posted on December 1, 2007 19:08