It’s
time that we all take a step back and do whatever it is the time for. I find
great comfort in wise words, whether they be simple or not. Some of my favorite
words come from Ecclesiastes 3:8:
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Right now is the time to breathe and
the time to have dialogue. Everyone is so polarized—not just during election
season and not just after a massacre. Everyone is constantly polarized.
Today, Pope Benedict XVI reaffirmed
the Catholic Church’s commitment to defending “traditional marriage,” stating:
“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity that serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves. The manipulation of nature, which we deplore today where our environment is concerned, now becomes man’s fundamental choice where he himself is concerned.”
Today, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA presser, declared that “Kindergarten
Killers,” an online game, is to blame for the mass shooting at Sandy Hook
Elementary school. Oh, also that a database of the mentally ill needs to be
created.
On Wednesday, Charlotte Allen wrote
that it was because Sandy Hook was so “feminized,” having no adult males, that
the shooter was able to take so many lives.
“But in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.”
I myself swing myself all the way to the other side of
the pendulum. I believe that gender is a social construct and that sexuality is
on a continuum. I believe that while the culture has to change, access to guns
must also be restricted. And I absolutely believe that the female teachers at
Sandy Hook Elementary School did anything and everything that a male teacher
could have done in that same situation.
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| Poster by Julia Rothman |
I, too, contribute to the polarization of our nation. I
get cringe at the mention of Todd Akin and I can’t bear to watch more than ten
minutes of the NRA press conference. I get upset when someone tells me—even jokingly—to
get back in the kitchen. I walk away when conversation turns political and my
views are the minority. I don’t always have the energy to be fighting the
fight, and that’s what this all is: a fight. We argue, we argue, we argue. Once
we have found the way that we believe is right, we close our ears. We need to
start having dialogue, rather than debate, to share our own experiences rather
than undermining those of others. The argument never ends, never solves any
problems; it only creates more.
This is my commitment to listen. This is my commitment to
being heard. This is my commitment to dialogue, not debate. To sitting with
people and enjoying our differences and our similarities. This is my commitment
to never stop learning, to never thinking I know it all. I trust that
meaningful conversation can change the world.