We choose love
Moms Demand Action - Sandy Hook Remembrance Vigil
December 14, 2013
What I remember most vividly from almost seven years ago is sitting in my kitchen, eating my breakfast, and hearing the sound of helicopters, one by one—I counted at least 6 of them—flying north over my house in Monroe, CT on their way to Chalk Hill School. It was January 3, 2013, Sandy Hook Elementary students’ first day of school since the shooting. They were news media helicopters; sent to take more photos, get more stories from people who had no more to say, who just wanted to get through that day, the whole awful, painful, frightening strangeness of it all. “Leave them alone!” I screamed at my kitchen ceiling. Hadn’t they been through enough?
Seven years later and you would think we’d all had more than enough by now. And yet here we are: a nation with 393 million guns—120 firearms for every 100 residents. However, we don’t have a gun problem in the United States—that’s one of the many symptoms. What we have is a values problem.
We value protecting gun rights over protecting human lives.
We value individual entitlement over communal care of each other.
We value power over rather than power with.
We value denial over discomfort.
We value facts over emotions and ideals.
We value control, might and strength over authenticity and vulnerability.
And money and racism, misogyny and violence, grief and suffering follow every single one of these values.
The truly terrifying thing about this values problem is that there are people in all levels of government, and throughout this country, who see nothing wrong with this, whose values are exactly these, who allow the ends to justify the means.
These are the values of empire.
Empire dehumanizes all those deemed ‘other’. That is where hate begins.
In our efforts to prevent gun violence in this country, we must guard against this in ourselves.
There is no ‘other side’. We are all Americans.
There is no ‘enemy’. We are all human beings. All struggles for peace begin within each one of us.
We are more than justifiably angry. But we need also to remember that the anger comes from our grief and our pain and that is what keeps us human. That is what keeps our hearts soft rather than hard.
What we are after is nothing less than a transformation of the heart of this nation and its people. But it begins with us, with our hearts, with our minds.
We value protecting lives.
We value communal care.
We value power with.
We value emotions and ideals.
We value authenticity and vulnerability.
And we have to be willing to live with the discomfort, the inevitable pain that comes from embracing these values.
Because ultimately what we value is love: radical, wholehearted, inclusive, justice-making, peace-seeking love.
December 14, 2013
Seven years later and you would think we’d all had more than enough by now. And yet here we are: a nation with 393 million guns—120 firearms for every 100 residents. However, we don’t have a gun problem in the United States—that’s one of the many symptoms. What we have is a values problem.
We value protecting gun rights over protecting human lives.
We value individual entitlement over communal care of each other.
We value power over rather than power with.
We value denial over discomfort.
We value facts over emotions and ideals.
We value control, might and strength over authenticity and vulnerability.
And money and racism, misogyny and violence, grief and suffering follow every single one of these values.
The truly terrifying thing about this values problem is that there are people in all levels of government, and throughout this country, who see nothing wrong with this, whose values are exactly these, who allow the ends to justify the means.
These are the values of empire.
Empire dehumanizes all those deemed ‘other’. That is where hate begins.
In our efforts to prevent gun violence in this country, we must guard against this in ourselves.
There is no ‘other side’. We are all Americans.
There is no ‘enemy’. We are all human beings. All struggles for peace begin within each one of us.
We are more than justifiably angry. But we need also to remember that the anger comes from our grief and our pain and that is what keeps us human. That is what keeps our hearts soft rather than hard.
What we are after is nothing less than a transformation of the heart of this nation and its people. But it begins with us, with our hearts, with our minds.
We value communal care.
We value power with.
We value emotions and ideals.
We value authenticity and vulnerability.
And we have to be willing to live with the discomfort, the inevitable pain that comes from embracing these values.
Because ultimately what we value is love: radical, wholehearted, inclusive, justice-making, peace-seeking love.
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