Surprised by Surprise

It's not been an easy week in the world. No week ever is, if we pause to think about it.
Like a lot of people, I've been following the news of the shooting at Virginia Tech, wondering what all the details are, why it happened, what could have been done to prevent it, and what will happen now, after. There are still a lot of questions.
I've been reflecting on our response, as a media-saturated people, and how much attention this shooting has gotten. Every day thousands of children die of malnutrition and starvation. Every day thousands die of AIDS. Yesterday 171 people were killed by a car bomb in Baghdad. None of these events will receive the media coverage, or generate the outrage, that a single mentally-ill man's actions have provoked.
Why is that? I don't have any definitive answers. Perhaps, though, it's as basic as who we identify ourselves and our neighbors, our community to be. And perhaps our "community" is too small. We know what life on a college campus is like, so we can identify with that - that could have been me, or my child, or my sibling. Does life in a poverty-stricken dusty village an ocean away just take too much imaginative power to relate to?
Few seem that surprised - or pay that much ongoing attention- when there's a suicide bomber in the Middle East.
Few are shocked - or pay that much ongoing attention - to hear that another AIDS orphan died in Africa.
Why are we surprised when violence and tragedy strike a little closer to home? To be honest, I was surprised by all the surprise. We can (and should) be saddened, perhaps angry, and moved by what happened to reach out and comfort those who are grieving and injured, to pray for peace and wholeness and reconciliation. But considering the world we live in, how can we be so surprised?
And what are we going to do about it? I'm not suggesting that we try to become immune to and unmoved by violence, tragedy, and disease - but what would it look like for us to know our brothers and sisters around the world in such a way as to really know the ongoing suffering that surrounds us? To be as saddened by the death of an unknown child in Africa as by the death of a promising young VTech student? To truly enter into the fellowship of Christ's suffering, and then be moved to action...