Heroes
Perhaps you have heard about Antoinette Tuff, who this week single-handedly prevented a massacre at an elementary school outside of Atlanta. When a man bearing an AK-47 and a variety of other weapons came into the school where Ms. Tuff works as a clerk she did not pull out a gun and shoot him, fulfilling the NRA’s fantasies of what protection looks like. Instead, she chose to respond to the gunman as a human being, not just a crazed killer. She told him her own story of heartbreak and getting through. She prayed. She told him that there was another way out, and invited him to lay down his weapons and give himself over to the police. And he did, without hurting anyone. In case the story isn’t wonderful enough at that, she gave him the opportunity to apologize over the PA system while teachers and students were still huddled in their classrooms.
Now, if you are a proponent of the idea that the best defense is a quick offense, then you will say that this is an anomaly, and that most people with violence on their minds cannot be talked down. While I have yet to see any particular evidence that this conviction is true, it also isn’t my point. If Ms. Tuff had pulled out a gun and shot the man as soon as she saw he was dangerous, teachers and children might have been saved, but someone would still have been shot. And in my theological world every life matters, even that of the gunman. But more than that, in the world of my personal convictions, love matters. Meeting people in their full humanity matters. And the true heroes are the ones who are willing to put their lives on the line in the service of love and humanity.
Antoinette Tuff is clearly a hero. So were the teachers huddled in their classrooms, determined that no child would be hurt on their watch. But you know what? Those teachers were heroes last week, when they didn’t have any idea that their school was headed for the news. They, and countless other teachers returning to school this season, were heroes when they stayed up late designing lesson plans that would engage children in the world of counting or chemistry or world history, working to get young people excited about the process of thinking in a world that is largely more interested in teaching young people to be excited about consuming. They were heroes when they scoured the garage sales looking for books that would make teenagers want to read; when they shared their lunch with a child who didn’t have any; when they stayed in at recess to talk with a child who was acting out in class to find out the source of his anger, rather than just sending him off to the principal’s office.
In the face of systems increasingly built around record-keeping and test-taking there are teachers – not all, but many – who continue to find ways to encourage creativity and critical thinking. In the face of increasing class sizes there are still teachers who still manage to meet each child as an individual, to accommodate each child’s needs and learning style. In the face of helicopter parents, parents working multiple jobs, addicted parents, and families living on the streets, teachers are providing environments where children can experience both responsibility and security. There are teachers – and a wide variety of other school personnel – who day after day meet child after child with love and respect and an abiding interest not only in who that child is, but also in who they might become.
In my book, that’s some kind of hero.
Looking for Words that Help
Here’s what I’ve been musing about all week, as events of all kinds have folded and unfolded: How do we describe forces that are indifferent to human life and suffering, and does our description make a difference as we try to lessen their hold on us?
Here’s when I started to wonder: When President Obama, initially describing the events just unfolding in Boston, said, “We don’t know if this is the act of terrorists or not.” And I thought, why don’t we know? Isn’t random killing of innocent civilians in a way designed to terrorize an entire city—isn’t that what terrorism means? And then I realized he meant that we didn’t know if it was the act of a specific group which is defined as a terrorist group.
But does that matter? The ‘lone gunman’ who so often is the perpetrator of these violent sprees terrorizes no less because he is not attached to a formal group. The families of the victims grieve no less. The by-standers are no less traumatized. I think that the definition matters only if we want to know exactly who to blame, and for license to retaliate.
The owners of the factory in West, Texas, who repeatedly assured the EPA that there was absolutely no danger of fire in their fertilizer plant: Weren’t they also acting from massive indifference to human life and suffering? Weren’t they putting their profit and convenience ahead of the lives of others? Are the people whose loved ones died or were injured there grieving any less? Are the by-standers any less traumatized?
Or this: The U.S. Senate, despite pleas from grieving parents of murdered children, and survivors of mass shootings, refused to take action to limit access to guns by even the tiniest bit. How are those 46 Senators who cast the no votes (and refused to let the majority rule) tied to the future suffering of the inevitable next mass shooting which we know will occur? Are they responsible?
I’m not going to use the word ‘terrorist’ to describe factory owners, or U.S. Senators, or even the two brothers who wreaked such harm in Boston last week. But I am going to wonder: How do we find language to hold one another accountable, to demand that businesses, governments, schools, churches, and individuals care for one another?
Because one thing I have observed in my life: Individuals mimic what we see. Indifferent parents lead to indifferent kids. Crummy teachers foster crummy students. Ineffective governments foster ineffective citizens. Democratic society can only happen with democratic government.
So I’m less interested in knowing who to blame and how to retaliate, and more interested in creating accountability between us all so that care for one another is maximized and violence between us is minimized. I’m interested in finding the language that will do that.
.
“Guns Don’t Kill People”
OK, so what if we accepted that “guns don’t kill people, people do”? Just for the record, I don’t happen to accept that premise, since guns kill people a whole lot more efficiently than, say, knives or fists, but never mind. Let’s just take it as a starting place.
Isn’t it just possible that our culture of guns encourages people to kill people? Mightn’t the fact that it is legal in many states to carry concealed weapons to the grocery store or to church create an expectation that we NEED guns wherever we go? Might it be possible that memes like the picture going around Facebook of a gun holstered under a steering wheel as an anti-carjacking device teach us that the solution to being hurt or scared or offended or threatened is respond with lethal force?
Perhaps people do feel more secure carrying guns about, but it is a security based on the assumption that the solution to fear of violence is to escalate the violence. Maybe the guns themselves aren’t the root of the problem. Maybe the guns are the effect of an assumption that the way to feel safe is to become more dangerous ourselves. Maybe the ever more rampant violence is bred by a culture that says that if you have been offended, if you are hurting, then the solution is to make those who offended you pay.
What if we didn’t have the guns to back us up in that belief? What if we all had to admit that there are situations in which we are powerless or terrified or ill-treated, and there is, ultimately, nothing we can do about it? What if we had to accept that life is dangerous in more ways than we can count, and that pain and, ultimately, death is inevitable? Might we then come to a little more compassion for our fellow human beings who all share this lot in life? Might we learn to address our pain in ways that are more constructive—or at least less damaging to those around us? Might we try to find solutions to some of the systemic problems that drive people toward desperation? Might we, just as a “for instance,” learn to teach our young men that striking back is not an available option, let alone one that our culture admires?
Isn’t it time that churches started taking seriously Jesus’ admonition to turn the other cheek, and consider what that might mean for our society? God knows it’s time for some leadership to come from somewhere.
Imperfect Being, Seeking Balance
For several weeks now, I have been walking around my garden first thing each morning, ignoring its beautiful blooms, walking by the vine ready vegetables and herbs, with one thing on my mind. Murder.
Yes, it’s those Japanese beetles that have me seeing with such tunnel vision. I walk around with a bucket of soapy water in my left hand, a plastic lid from a quart of yogurt in my right hand, and seek to knock the little bugs into the soapy water. When I’m lucky, three or four of them are cavorting on one leaf and I can get them all in at once. Most days I end up with around 20 or 30 of them writhing in the suds.
It is a little scary to find this ruthless side of myself, taking delight in the death of other beings. Well, not delight exactly…but, yeh, joy. I want them dead. I want them gone. Every last one of them. I WANT THEM OFF MY GREEN BEANS!
Someone told me—erroneously, as far as I can see, that the stench from the dead bugs, if they are left sitting in the yard, discourages more of these beetles from coming into the garden. So not only am I constantly murdering these little bugs, I am then leaving them to make a kind of dead bug sun tea, sitting on my little meditation bench right by my three foot garden statue of Kwan Yin, the Buddhist Boddhisatva of compassion. I imagine that Kwan Yin is not delighted with my behavior, but suspect she has seen much worse.
It’s funny how we all –well, most of us anyway–make peace with the violence in our lives. For the most part, I eat meat that’s local, organic and where the animal had a good quality of life…does that make the violence any less when the animals’ lives are taken? I use all kinds of leather products without a bit of guilt, but would never consider a fur coat or hat.
And, aside from the damage of those chewed up leaves, and the stench of that sun tea, my garden is a place of joy, beauty, and sustenance, not only for me but for many neighbors who walk or drive by just to savor it. After I’ve done my murder detail, I relax and weed, harvest, and take delight in the color, texture, and life that makes a garden.
In the garden, in my house, in my car, I have no illusions that all of my contributions to the planet bring peace and love for all. With my behavior towards the Japanese beetles, I can’t say this keeps me up at night (though I do wish the beetles had a different name. A name which is also a human nationality makes me think of people who are Japanese, and I hope that I am not somehow participating in hurtful behavior towards them by using the name Japanese beetle, but it’s the only name I know!)
I’m keeping a quiet tally in pretty much every area of my life—I drive a hybrid car so I can feel good about using less gas (as I drive pretty much anywhere I feel like going, whenever I feel like going). I have central air conditioning, but I only use it when it’s going to be over 90. I mostly shop at thrift stores (for whatever on earth I feel like consumingI) I am constantly balancing. Bargaining, balancing, tallying, and always wondering what the score really is that measures what I am contributing to the planet.
I remember a New Yorker cartoon from some years ago. Two men are in a very fancy restaurant, in suits. One says, “I do a lot of pro bono work to make up for all of the anti bono work that I do.” And for some reason, I feel better when I remember the movie made a few years ago about Al Gore, back when he was traveling around warning all of us about global climate change. As compelling as his talks were, as frightening as his predictions were, there he was boarding plane after plane, being driven around in giant cars, guzzling up the world’s resources to tell us. There he was.
And here we are! As I make my way, seeking to find balance in an imbalanced world, I am grateful for friends who accept me just as I am, and who remind me to have a sense of humor about myself. Yes, I only bank at a local credit union with great politics, but I never turn down a Diet Coke. Sure, I try to live from a place of love, but I can be right there for whining or for gossip. And while spiritual community means the world to me, don’t take away my computer solitaire!
Good luck to you, my fellow earthlings seeking balance. May our care and respect for one another, even in our deep inconsistency and imperfection, keep us ever seeking the path where we can find more life together as a people on this beautiful and fragile planet!
