"fight" for what you believe?

I have thought and thought and thought about this blog post.  I had one almost completely written and then scrapped it.  There's both so much I want to say and no words to say it.  Others have spoken much more eloquently and meaningfully and thoughtfully than I can.  But for my children, I write this:

Earlier this week, a madman killed 6 people and wounded 20 others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in Tucson, Arizona.  President Obama led a memorial service for the victims on Wednesday.  I turned on the TV to watch "Modern Family."  I didn't turn off the TV because your dad was there and he wanted to see.  He is braver than me.  I only watched part of it because I made it through Obama's tribute to each of the 6 who died, and then couldn't see through my tears and decided for my own sake to walk out of the room.  But maybe I should have stayed.  I've read about some of the moments that I missed.  Moments when kindness and bravery and hope shone in the midst of the sadness. 

For this is a great, great sadness.  My heart has felt heavy all week.  It is most heavy for the victims, for the lives that are irreparably changed. 

But the heaviness that was already carried in my gut and has only been increased by this tragedy, is the heaviness that our nation is so angry and bitter and violent toward one another.  Not just with guns, but with speech.  This tragedy has only further hightlighted how diveded we are.  We use words as weapons.  And though words did not shoot anyone, and words may not be directly (or even indirectly) responsible for a madman, they do foster an environment in which it becomes OK to degrade, to tear down, to demonize, to hate. 

Paul Krugman asserts in an opinion piece in the NY Times that there is little hope for a middle ground in our country right now, for the two sides (right and left) have such fundamentally different morality.  So Obama's call to "expand our moral imagination, to listen to each other more carefully" (from the memorial service) is doomed to failure.  Krugman says we need to discuss how to speak our differences within bounds and within the rule of law, but he does not expect us to understand one another or compromise with one another.  We're just too different.

Maybe he's right.  I hope he's wrong. 

I hope that at least now we will be more careful with our words, more careful about how we portray the opposition, whoever that might be.  And I hope that we will listen to one another.  We may not come to agreement, but I do believe that listening to the "other" can shift our hearts, away from anger and rancor to respect (even begrudging) and actual liking.  I can like people who believe differently.  I don't have to fight them.  I can stand up for what I believe without tearing down those who disagree.  


From a reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog at The Atlantic on "The View from Tucson:"

I was at Rep. Giffords' office late last night. I wanted to get a few photos to help me deal with what happened, and there were still people there well past midnight. The FOX News crew was packing up, and it was cold (40s with a dry breeze). The news crew seemed friendly enough, but nobody talked much - whether the crowd was 300 (at 6pm) people or 10 (at midnight). There was still too much weight to speak.

Ten years ago, Tucson seemed to be home to a range of opinions, from the Greens to the Libertarians to the Dems and Republicans. Even the University of Arizona logo is red and blue. Now Tucson feels blue or red - a mix of only two sides. But this is belied by the mix of homages at her office: Mexican Catholic votives and rosaries, Jewish symbols, Vets for Gabby placards, University of Arizona mascots, private religious school posters (with hundreds of well-wishes or signatures), childrens' stuffed animals. They were placed by the hundreds of yuppies, grandparents, rednecks, and kids standing around with candles and pizza that were donated by local businesses.

The change from shades to bichromatic happened within 10 years; perhaps it will change again.

Let it be. Dear God, let it be.