Seeking Peace

If things don’t go your way, it’s quite all right to feel sorry for yourself, complain, and spew invectives.

 

Worse yet, it’s fine to throw a temper tantrum or commit an act of road rage.

 

And, let’s take this to a ridiculous extreme: you’re justified to resort to violence.

 

No. I repeat, No. A thousand times No.

 

It’s common sense. It’s respect for institutions. It’s respect for your fellow man. It’s taking the high road. It’s setting an example for those who follow.

 

Any clear-thinking, enlightened, civilized human being knows that.

 

So you’d think.

 

The violent mob assault on the United States Capitol yesterday as legislators in both Houses of Congress were affirming the results of the 2020 Presidential election proves once again that – how can I say this delicately? – there’s much work left to be done in this country.

 

The scenes that appeared on television – no doubt they were more horrific in person – evoked memories that I’d just as soon forget and emotions that, with each attack upon the sacred principles upon which our democracy was created, I hoped I’d never feel again.

 

There was that quiet Friday afternoon in November 1963. I was a sophomore at Norfolk Academy, eagerly anticipating JV basketball practice in a couple of hours, then the weekend, when the announcement came for everyone to report to the gym.

 

As we filed in, blithely unaware that anything could possibly be wrong, I detected, as I recall, an air of solemnity amongst the adults – the faculty – assembled before us.

 

In a moment, John Tucker, the assistant head of school, informed us that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas.

 

We were stunned, of course. How could this possibly happen?  Who would do such a thing? Why? Why? Why?

 

The moment and the aftermath are familiar to most with even a passing interest in history. Little could we know at the time that it was but one life-shattering event in a transcendent decade.

 

At the moment, my 15-year-old self struggled mightily to comprehend. All these years later, I struggle still to make sense of man’s inhumanity to man.

 

Then there was that bright, clear, idyllic Tuesday morning in September 2001. School was off to a great start. Expectations for a wonderful year abounded. Joy was palpable. Several of us were standing in the Middle School office a little before 9 a.m., talking about some issue now long forgotten when the shocking news arrived.

 

A plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center.

 

Accident or terrorist attack? Who knew at the moment?

 

We hurried to the library and, on a television in the back room, watched the horrifying images unfold. Incredulous, we listened to the news reports. Then came the second plane. Then, the third, which crashed into the Pentagon. Then the collapse of the South Tower.  Then, the crash of the fourth plane into the field in rural Pennsylvania. Then the collapse of the North Tower. It was not yet 10:30 a.m.

 

Just as Americans rallied to comfort and support each other as the days and weeks unfolded, we as a school community pulled together to assure each other and the children whose parents entrusted them to us that they were safe when we really didn’t know if any of us would feel safe ever again.

 

That’s not all, of course, that I recall as moments of reckoning, as if forces of evil had landed a solid gut-punch on the virtues of goodness and decency.

 

There were the assassinations of Martin and Bobby within two months of each other in 1968. There was the Black September attack on the Israeli delegation at the Munich Olympics. There were Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland and far too many others. There was the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, a blatant act of domestic terrorism. There was Charlottesville, and there were the deaths of unarmed people of color, many times while in police custody. There were many other events in our scarred history that could leave one wondering if good remains still in this world, if equanimity is more than a fleeting reaction, and if love will truly ever trump hate. 

 

In the early afternoon of 9/11, I checked in with my mother who was 85 at the time. The daughter of a Methodist minister, she had experienced the Great Depression and spent 20 months wondering if her new husband, my dad, would return from the European Theater.

 

She’d seen plenty during her lifetime. She was a woman of great faith. She was well-read, a lifelong learner, and a student of history. She attempted to see different sides of every issue before forming her opinions.

 

When we talked that day, she referenced trips she had taken to Hawaii where she’d paid homage to the Americans who died at Pearl Harbor. She’d visited Normandy, stood on Utah Beach where my father’s unit had landed shortly after D-Day, and offered prayers of gratitude at the American cemetery overlooking the English Channel.

 

She was seeking closure, she told me, and she was seeking peace.

 

Then she added, “…and to have this horrible thing happen. Now I don’t know if I’ll ever have closure or peace.”

 

Will any of us? I wondered then.

 

I wonder still.

 ~ Weldon Bradshaw