Tragedy reminds us that life is precious and fragile. When it involves children, the pain goes even deeper. The deaths of twenty school children (and seven adults) in Connecticut yesterday is beyond comprehension. I woke up this morning wishing the clock could be turned back a day to make this event something that never happened. But it cannot, so all of us are left with the raw feelings that run the gamut of sadness to anger to dismay to helplessness back to anger and helplessness all over again. None of these feelings is wrong. Feelings don’t have morality. They come and go not of our own choosing. It’s what we do with feelings that gets into right and wrong. That is why how we respond to tragedy is the measure of our character. This is true for us individually, and it is true for the nation.
Personally all the deaths, and especially the children, make me want to be a better person. That requires an assessment of who I am now and how I often think and act. In many ways it is not a pretty picture. For one thing, and quite relevant to this tragedy, I can get as angry as the next person. There are times, for example, when I get so upset with the way the people on Fox News distort issues or make up stuff out of thin air that I could chew a nail in half. As far as I’m concerned they deserve to be called “Fix News.” The same anger rises up in me when I read or hear some minister say something truly stupid like former Arkansas Governor and minister Mike Huckabee did yesterday when his response to the Connecticut tragedy was to blame it on “taking God out of schools.” Really? But if I am honest with myself I know the anger I feel when this kind of thing happens doesn’t do me or the world any good, and certainly doesn’t make schools safer. I want to change that.
So today I have new resolve to be a better person by deepening my commitment to building bridges between people, especially people of different races, nationalities, economic and social backgrounds, and different religions. That involves being as informed as I can possible be about every subject in which I have an interest. I know thinking is not the answer to every problem, but there really is no substitute for it. I was taught that being an educated person was a noble goal and that speaking in ways that reveal ignorance of a subject was a bad thing. Today it seems people are content to have opinions that show a level of ignorance that would have been embarrassing to past generations. I used to tell my students that everyone was entitled to his or her opinion, but never forget that there are a lot of stupid opinions around. I wanted them to do their best not to be someone who fit into that category.
But that goes for me, too. It is easy to have an opinion without bothering to be informed about whatever I have an opinion about. A simple example is my opinion of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Let’s just say it is not very good. Then I read a statement by his more liberal colleague, Elena Kagan, who said the Court was better off because of him because he pushed the justices to pay more attention to the actual words of the Constitution rather than solely the intent. Damn, I wish she hadn’t said that, but today I know I need to allow her comment to influence my opinion of the man. I don’t have to like him any more than I do, but to think he is a detriment to the nation’s well being may not be as accurate as I was sure it was yesterday. It would be easier to dismiss what she said and hold on to what I was thinking before she said it. But the deaths of everyone killed yesterday won’t let me. I want to be better than that.
I am sure that what has happened will not change me, you, or our nation in a dramatic way. I also know that troubled and disturbed people will continue to do terrible things for which innocent children and adults will pay an unjust price. But today I am more determined than I was yesterday to do more in my life to make the world a better place. And who knows, if enough of us think the same way, and follow through on our good intentions, we might make a bigger difference than we think. At the least the children and adults around us will appreciate the difference they see in us. I think that alone makes the effort worth all the work it will take.
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I felt the same way, Jan–especially after reading the quote by Mr. Rogers about looking for the “helpers” during a tragedy. It made me proud that I was a teacher for 3 decades, and I hope I would have been and would be a helper in such a case. I have resolved to keep looking at the helpers instead of damning the mentally ill, for instance, who also need our help.
Thanks for your comments. Helpful. Terrible moments like this drive me back to basics: faith, hope and love,,,but the greatest of these is love. Penny
thank you Jan. ’nuff said.
Friday, and the aftermath, are just numbing! It is a mirror of the human species and of our nation, our culture. We…are…violent! Guns simply make that fact lethal. Many complex changes must happen to reduce our anger but reducing the “lethal” consequnces of anger CAN be implemented, with enough popular demand. One way for us to be better would be to learn from Australia, another republic, which implemented a nationwide asault weapons ban (as in zero, nada) after a mass killing spree of 35 victims there in 1996, including a “buy back” of all existing such weapons at 110% of retail value! This “serious response” has resulted in 0 mass killings since enactment! We can all pass that idea along to our representatives. We’ll see.
Ultimately, until every human being values all others, all of creation for that matter, as sacred, without condition, acting out of love, we will continue to receive exams and lectures by the strictest professors ever to exist: pain and suffering! Until then we will repeat this “grade” indefinitely. God be with us!