What Good Can Come From the Tragedy in Tucson?

It happened just 5 miles from my house.  And when it was over six people were dead, including a 9-year- old girl, a f ederal judge and a 76-year- old man who died shielding his wife from a gunman’ s bullets.  An additional 13 were wounded.  One of them was a neighbor of mine, the mother of a boy my son went to Scout meetings with.  Another was U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, shot through the head yet, remarkably, not killed.

Rep. Giffords’ life was most likely saved by the quick attention of an intern—a college student who held his hands tightly over the entrance and exit wounds until emergency personnel could arrive, applying the pressure that prevented her from bleeding to death.   Dozens more were spared injury or death when two men, one a 74-year -old retired Army colonel who was already wounded, tackled and held the gunman, and a 61-year- old woman managed to wrestle away an ammunition magazine from him and then held his legs down while the two men kept his upper body pinned.  

It has been 11 days now since those tragic and senseless shootings on Jan. 8, 2011, and there are still news vans sprouting satellite dishes parked in front of the Safeway supermarket where Rep. Giffords had come to meet constituents for a “ Congress on Your Corner ” public event.  Shoppers going to buy groceries today pass by the makeshift memorial at the store’ s entrance, some adding flowers, a candle or a card to the many pictures, prayers and well-wishes that have been placed there in memory of the dead, in hope of healing for the wounded and in thanks for the hometown heroes who helped save lives that day.  

It is sobering to walk by the memorial . It’s impossible not to mourn the senselessness of the slaughter and the pain that was inflicted on so many innocent individuals and families by one young man’ s deranged act.  But it is inspiring, too, to see how people can pull together, support and make selfless sacrifices for one another.  In tragedy, we often see the best, and the worst, of which man is capable.

I’ve passed that corner hundreds of times.  Shopped in that Safeway.  Eaten in the restaurant on that corner.  What if I had been there that day?  Or you?  Would one of us be a hero?  A victim?  What would I have done when the shots rang out?  Would I have died?  If so, would I have lived in such a way as to honor God? Would I have served Him faithfully and loved and served my fellow man?

I still have time, and life, to do that.  Those who died no longer do.  They await a promised resurrection.  The scriptures describing that wonderful time are comforting.  But for me, I have come away from visiting the memorial with another scripture in mind as well:  Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “ It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting:  for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart” (King James Version).

We who live are called by such a tragedy as this to consider our lives—the  precious but temporary gift of God.  One poster, taped against the red brick outside the Safeway store, with the pictures of each of the six who died, said this:   “Lord God, let Tucson be a better place, that these lives were not lost in vain. ”  We can be encouraged and motivated by those remarkable examples of sacrifice, service and caring just as we can be shocked by the evil we see and sobered by the realization of how fragile life can be.

We are called by God not just to make Tucson a better place, but the world.  Of course, that will happen with the return of Jesus Christ to establish His Kingdom on earth.  But let us each take the lesson to heart, and let our lives reflect His care, His love and His commitment to righteousness always.

“He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”  (Micah 6:8).