A time for Reflection

Reverend Kerry Holder, Anglican minister from Alabama, signs a message board of condolences to be delivered to Dawson College.
Owen Egan

The tenor of the World's Religions After 9/11 Congress changed dramatically following the violence at Dawson in mid-week. The following are the impressions of some of the spiritual leaders and religious scholars in attendance.

"I make a morning prayer ever morning and ask my guru to guide my day. 'Whatever you want me to do with my hands, my body, however you want me to serve this world.' I didn't go into work that day. I call it divine coincidence but I do not take it lightly."

— Shanta Srivastava, biology teacher at Dawson College who called in sick on the day of the shooting.

"The community can either respond by revisiting issues of gun control, video games and isolation or we can become more entrenched in out little worlds. Resurrection and life will outshine the darkness but we have to help. This is Dawson's Good Friday, but there will be an Easter."

— Reverend Kelly Holder, Anglican minister.

"The trouble is, modern life is highly secular. Our need to latch on to something absolute goes into undesirable channels when denied."

— Arvind Sharma, McGill's Birks Professor of Comparative Religion and co-chair of World's Religions Congress.

"I am curious to know what is [Kimveer Gill's] story, what has he been telling himself? And what's his part in our collective story?"

— Beatty lecturer Deepak Chopra during his press conference.