Winter is approaching. The nights are getting longer, colder, sharper. The dappled susurrus of autumn leaves is giving way to the harsh bite of winter’s chill.
The sun will soon be watered down by snow-laden clouds, reduced to a cool, watery shell of its former warmth and glory. The nights are starting sooner. Dawn drifts farther off. In my world, the dark is taking hold.
And I can’t help but think that the dark is taking hold in other places, too.
What must these long nights be like for the French men and women who lost their loved ones, who must contend with the newfound grief with less and less sunlight to warm their hearts?
What must it be like for the Syrians who huddle in the cold and the dark, with only each other for warmth, driven from their homeland by violence?
In tragedy, we all too often forget the individuals.
I don’t want to talk about politics. I don’t want to talk about numbers or statistics. I want to think about lives. People. LIFE means something. SOMEONE means something. I won’t reduce them to numbers.
This is what those who commit acts of terror want: mass hysteria. Reductionism. They don’t want to be fighting people; they want to be fighting on behalf of ideals. They don’t want to be killing people; they want to strike terror into our hearts. People of America, I beg of you, do not let this happen.
Do not fear. Love.
Embrace your neighbor. Embrace our brothers and sisters on our soil, and embrace our brothers and sisters in arms who fight far from our homeland. Embrace those who protest for what they believe is right -- whether that is for black lives or against abortion. Embrace those who flee across the ocean from war crimes and hostility; embrace those already here who want to worship in peace.
We are Americans. But we are humans. We are many peoples, but we are one People. We won’t be cowed by mindless violence.
To love someone isn’t to be affectionate. It is to trust. To hand someone a dagger, shrug, and say "please don’t." And to love our fellow human beings is to trust that they are good people. They are honest people. They are people, too.
There will always be struggles in wartime. But we need not be coldhearted. Ten thousand Syrian refugees. Is one perhaps a terrorist?
...Maybe. But we cannot allow the slight possibility of one terrorist to dictate the national policy of 332 million Americans. We cannot allow one voice to overshadow the many. We cannot allow them to WIN.
As winter approaches, as nights get darker, as the ground gets colder: do not let our hearts grow harder.
Remember not the numbers. Remember the people. Remember who we are. I beg of you, America, remember.
Remember…what it is to love.
