Nine-year old Christina-Taylor Green “was very interested in going” to see her state representative speak “because she wanted to learn more about government so she could help out in the future,” said her mother, Roxanna Green, according to MSNBC. Now the girl is dead, killed by the same man who shot U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others, including Green.
I simply can’t imagine losing a child, much less to a senseless act of violence. If there is one thing that gives me parental nightmares—the waking-up-in-a-cold-sweat-with-the-shakes kind—it is these incidents of random shootings or bombings in schools or public places.
Christina-Taylor Green was born on September 11, 2001, a day that brought our country together against another senseless act. Rather than bringing us together, though, Saturday’s shooting seems to have torn us apart, highlighting the divide between left and right. Yes, the right may have used gun/crosshairs imagery more obviously of late, but examples can be found on both the left and the right. And political rhetoric—no matter what the source—is only one part of what caused suspect Jared Lee Loughner to pull the trigger. The tragedy has no one cause. Preventing others from happening will have no one solution.
If you haven’t yet, go read this article on Green by Rev. Anne Howard. She is an Episcopal priest, but her words go beyond any particular faith or political persuasion. “What we need in the public square right now, in our places of worship and places of learning, in our Tweets, blogs and Facebook posts and in our supermarket parking lots, is a kind of love that looks something like a mother’s love,” she writes. A love both tender and fierce.
It will take more than that, of course. It may take legislation or better enforcement of existing laws. It may take better measures to detect when people are at risk of committing violence, and to get them the help they need. But without an attitudinal change in our society, these actions will never be implemented effectively.
The death of Green and the others is a tragedy. It would be a worse tragedy, however, if they died in vain. Let us hope we as a country consider this a wake-up call, from the federal level right down to what we teach and practice in our communities and our households. We can disagree without hatred. We can debate without spreading fear. We can compete without violence. We can offer a hand to those in need.
“We” means all of us.