In the past 14 days, we have witnessed terrible and appalling acts of violence at a school in Minnesota, a school in Colorado, and the killing of Charlie Kirk in Utah.

As despicable as these acts are and as angry and upsetting as they make us, HOW each of us reacts will have an enormous impact on both our personal lives and the state of our country.

Here’s my personal opinion (as well as the views of some people I respect) on both the wrong way and the right way to react to these situations:

The Wrong Way to React and Respond

I have read and observed the attempt of many to politicize these events and further deepen political division that is becoming rampant across the country. For example, even before the killer was even identified in the murder of Charlie Kirk, it was stated that this was caused by the “radical left” and “enemies of a state,” some stating that we should get ready for “Civil War 2.0.”

Make no mistake about it, these are horrifying events. However, labeling the cause as either the far left or the far right not only doesn’t help us deal with the situation, I believe it makes it far worse.

The Right Way to React and Respond

I believe the right approach is to focus on how to bring us together as a country and become less partisan, focusing on what we have in common and what brings us together as opposed to what tears us apart.

One person that I have only recently been exposed to, but I feel expresses a great approach, is Utah governor Spencer Cox, a Republican who articulates what it will take to reduce extreme polarization. He shared his views in an NPR article on Saturday, September 12 titled, “Utah governor known for ‘disagreeing better’ calls for calm at Kirk shooting.”

Here are a few excerpts:

“You are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage. It feels like rage is the only option,” Cox said to a crowded room of reporters at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

“Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now. Not by pretending differences don’t matter, but by embracing our differences and having those hard conversations,” Cox continued.

Referring to President Trump: “Your life was spared. Now, because of that miracle, you have the opportunity to do something that no other person on earth can do right now: unify and save our country,” Cox wrote. “I fear that America is on the precipice of an unmitigated disaster. We need to turn down the temperature and find ways to come together again before it’s too late.”

The article concludes with this powerful statement: “We will never be able to solve all the other problems, including the violence problems that people are worried about,” he said, “if we can’t have a clash of ideas safely and securely, especially those ideas with which you disagree.”

I also had the opportunity to hear the thoughts of Father Bob Dowd, the president of the University of Notre Dame:

There are no easy answers as we contemplate this violence and the great suffering it causes. As a community of faith, we lift up in prayer and walk in solidarity with all those who have been impacted.

Knowing it will take all of us to heal our nation and world, let us each recommit to being part of the solution and to being peacemakers and builders of bridges.

Let us recommit to listening to those with different viewpoints and to engaging in respectful dialogue. We are diminished as individuals and as a community if we engage only with the like-minded, and most especially, if we fail to treat with respect those with whom we disagree.

To get another perspective, here are some thoughts from the Digital Editor of The Economist, Adam Roberts:

Debates over who is most responsible for political violence will rage on. (We have an article showing the data on who actually carries out most of it.) That’s troubling, for it coincides with a dour mood in politics and fears that polarisation, and bitter dislike of political rivals, could lead to something even worse. We have written that America faces a choice: assassinations and other political violence could now become more routine, just as mass shootings in American schools, tragically, are so common. Or, with the right sort of leadership, and efforts to lower the political temperature, more violence could be discouraged.

Mr Trump, J.D. Vance and many other MAGA grandees will be at the Arizona memorial. Will those figures talk of trusting the legal process, and the value of thoughtful, not violent, disagreement? Or will there be more casually violent talk, such as Mr. Trump’s apparent threat to launch a “war” in Chicago this month?

And finally, since for some of us, words from the Bible can often be helpful, here are a couple of thoughts that my good friend Scott Macdonald sent me this morning:

We can measure the degree to which we love our Lord by the degree to which we love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39; John 13:34).

We can measure the degree to which we love our neighbor by the degree to which we love our enemies, since the two are so often the same (Matthew 5:44).

We can measure the degree to which we love our enemies by the degree to which we “do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27), seeking their best at any cost to ourselves (vv. 28–30).

Well, my friends, I will try my best this week to take the time to understand multiple perspectives, and as I always quote Saint Francis, “seek to understand before I’m understood.”

Balance | Blog | Self Reflection