Could we please just stop talking for minute? Can we declare a moratorium on the use of our brains for a moment -- even a second; a moratorium on arguments about the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, who we are voting for and whether they actually meant what they said? Not forever; just for a time. Could we possibly press “pause” on all the moral posturing, all the righteous indignation, all our Bible thumping, trash-talking, Pontificating, problem solving, philosophizing and fear-mongering long enough to simply...
...cry?
Fifty human beings -- fellow countrymen -- just got slaughtered in a matter of moments, plus a like number injured. People with whom we may have everything in common or nothing save the only two things that matter: the Image of God, and a pulse. Can't we simply grieve the fact that in a horrific act of terror that precious pulse was stilled?
Or have we become so mired in our opinions, our partisanship, our positions, our fears and our machismo that we have completely lost the capacity to feel?
To empathize?
To know ourselves to be part of the human race?
To weep?
Let this be an "issue" some other day. Today, allow it the privilege of simply being a tragedy.
How has it come to be in this country that in response to any word, any act, any idea -- whether hopeful or hurtful -- we are immediately driven to mount our horse, scale the mountain, plant a flag and defend it?
How has it come to be in this country that in response to any word, any act, any idea -- whether hopeful or hurtful -- we are immediately driven to mount our horse, scale the mountain, plant a flag and defend it?
I say let’s agree to disengage our brains for a moment -- quieting all the “head chatter” -- and quietly remember how to feel something again besides anger and fear.
If we can.
If it's not too late.
If we haven't already become so metallic in mind and soul that we no longer have the capacity to be human.
I don't care right now about all the hypothetical solutionceuticals -- those simplistic little pill-like fixes that are suddenly, laughably being proposed that if ”swallowed” would instantly cure such cultural ills. For one thing, I deeply doubt they will work. For another, it's all just making my head hurt. And my heart. Fifty human beings just lost their lives in our back yard, and the hospital wards are full of that many more. It shouldn't matter right now who they were, where they were, if they voted like us or didn't bother to vote at all; if they were Christians, Muslims, atheists or Zoroastrians. It should -- at least for these staggeringly grief-filled moments -- only matter THAT they were, with air filling their lungs one moment and blood pumping through their veins, and all of a sudden, violently, tragically, it wasn't, that blood in an instant loosed everywhere except where it needed to be.
If that kind of sobering tragedy no longer has the capacity to silence us and drive us collectively to our knees in heartbroken solidarity then God help us all. If, that is, God can even any longer recognize us as the humans once created in that Divine Image and therefore worthy of help.
Please, can we just stop yelling at each other for a moment and simply grieve? If for no other reason, we need to remember how.
We can get back to analyzing, cursing, politicking and posturing in a day or two. That, I am sure, we'll never forget how to do.
We can talk tomorrow. The only fitting thing to do just now...
...is cry.
