“Then Elisha prayed, ‘O LORD, open his eyes and let him see!’ ... ” 2 Kings 6:17
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano read from Isaiah about our source of comfort. Attorney General Eric Holder read from 2 Corinthians 4 about looking to “things not seen” for our source of faith, speaking plainly the name of Christ. And of course, President Barack Obama quoted Psalm 46 and the river in heaven where God dwells as encouragement for the days ahead, and Job to describe the darkness around us—as well as describing the church involvement of the victims memorialized in Tucson on Wednesday, January 12. He didn’t have to include those details of the lives of the slain. But he did. Considering the prominence of Scripture in the speeches delivered at the University of Arizona, the idea of Christianity being vilified in the United States seems ludicrous to me. (And so, I just wanted to continue the sentiment of the Tucson event with another apt verse.)
The lives of the victims were varied. A U.S. District Judge. A young politically active fiancé. A Church of Christ pastor. A former Marine. A Republican grandmother from New Jersey. And possibly the one whose face is now etched in all our minds: a 9-year-old little girl full of promise.
The heroes were just as myriad. A gay, naturalized citizen from Mexico who volunteered in Rep. Gabby Giffords’s office. The older men present at Gifford’s meeting. And a “petite 61-year-old, Patricia Maisch,” who grabbed ammunition from the shooter Saturday.
They all represented the “best of America,” as Obama put it. They showed so many different facets of our citizenry while also illustrating that, in the midst of those differences, we really are connected. We are really all in this together. And every person matters. Every life is significant.
“Heroism is found,” said Obama, “not only on the fields of battle. … Heroism is here, all around us, in the hearts of so many of our citizens.”
All of these citizens gathered at the “Congress on Your Corner” event organized by Giffords because they believed in the possibility our democracy offers—that their voices counted. Obama charged the nation with the responsibility to honor their memory. “What, beyond prayers and expressions of concern, is required of us going forward?” (Or, how can we be the answer to the prayers we offer?) “How can we honor the fallen?”
I don’t need to go into detail about the state of public discourse before the Tucson tragedy, nor the accusatory rhetoric afterward. You have heard and read commentary about it everywhere. But I appreciate the president’s urging to “pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.” To do that we must get out of our echo chambers and take off our blinders (pardon the clichés).
We need to correct our impaired vision.
Obama spoke of “guarding against simple explanations” about what happened in Tucson, and “challenging old assumptions. … We cannot use this tragedy as one more occasion to turn on each other.”
I particularly appreciated that he called for civility, “not because a lack of civility caused this tragedy—it did not—but because only a more civil and honest public discourse can help us face up to our challenges as a nation, in a way that would make them proud.”
A call for civility is not a look backward with finger-pointing, but a look forward, reaching for aspirations higher than winning arguments. Harsh public conversation did not cause this heartbreak, but this loss of precious life is now pushing us to reexamine how we speak to one another. That is a good and necessary thing. And we should, as Obama said, “question each other’s ideas without questioning each other’s love of country.” We are in this ongoing experiment together.
Christina Taylor Green—so full of promise, as every child is—was notable for being born on September 11, 2001: a “Face of Hope.” This is the hope, I believe, Obama was going for in his campaign for president. A hope for the future. A hope for healing. A hope for all that is good in America. With all our differing views on how to move this nation forward, we need to keep that shared hope in our sight, or risk stumbling over one another and going nowhere.
In a moving announcement, Obama shared that during his and First Lady Michelle Obama’s visit to see Rep. Giffords in the hospital before the speech, Gabby opened her eyes for the first time. It is our turn to open our eyes to one another as fellow citizens and not opponents.
As Obama reminded us, we owe that to the victims to honor their memory.
