America, we need to talk.
We need to talk about a lot of things right now.
We need to talk about homophobia,
and transphobia,
and gun violence,
and assault weapons,
and the NRA,
and religious extremism.
We need to, but apparently we can’t because we’ve been told so.
The decision of silence has been made for us:
“It’s too soon.”
“That’s not the real issue here.”
“Now is not the time.”
“That just insults the victims.”
This is simply no longer acceptable.
If now is not the time, just when in God’s name is it time?
What is the tipping point in human life where dialogue becomes permissible? Apparently it’s still higher than 49 human lives.
When is there enough blood spilled to merit everything having to be held up to the raking light of brutally honest examination?
Our country is terribly broken and no one here is qualified to decide what topics are off-limits as we try together to fix it. The whole sick, hateful, damaged, hemorrhaging thing is on the table.
It has to be.
Injustice is never remedied when people of power or privilege or try and shut down the discussion, or when the conversation gets too uncomfortable or too close for us to bear.
In the space of that forced silence, any wounds that exist only fester and spread until the whole thing becomes toxic; until the hatred metastasizes and nothing is left un-poisoned.
America is so afflicted right now.
And so we are rebelling against your suggested silence today. We are respectfully but surely defying it.
We are declaring without ambiguity that one side does not get to quiet the other.
One group or one person or one political party doesn’t get to decide what merits discussion. We all decide that together.
This is how this Democracy thing works:
It invites opinion.
It welcomes discussion.
It finds beauty in the exchange of many ideas for the common good.
It recognizes urgency and responds immediately when people are being victimized.
Whatever is worth preserving about America was formed in the crucible of conversation; in the difficult, abrasive times and spaces where dissenting and diverse voices met and where compromise was reached.
That is our country’s calling card in the world, or at least it is supposed to be.
And so we are going to talk about it—all of it.
Now.
Those of us interested in being agents of healing are going to loudly ask every question and raise every possibility and speak every hidden fear and slaughter every sacred cow, because if we don’t do that in this day, we know that we will be mutually complicit in the violence of the days that follow; if we relax and begin to forget just how horrible this day is.
You can opt out, but know that you will not do it without culpability.
If you choose not to engage in this conversation now (whether or not you want to admit it), you will be willing accomplices to coming suffering.
When another Orlando or Charleston or Ferguson or Baltimore or Sandy Hook happens—that blood will be thick on your hands.
This is the cost of your silence now; of procrastinating away dialogue.
Its toll is life. It is paid for by the suffering of others, in the next horrific news story, and the next viral tragedy.
That is why we who seek hope in the future will demand discussion now.
We will invite all those willing to shape a solution to the wounds of this nation, into a true conversation without agenda or limit or caveat or boundaries.
That is what Humanity does, and this kind of open, passionate, messy, dialogue is the table of redemptive Grace where it meets.
Silence may be your aspiration, but for us it is no longer an option. So yes this is the time.
Too much life has been lost, too many memorial services held, too much damage done.
In the face of senseless death like this, we have no peace with your quiet.
