I’ve been avoiding commenting on the events in Connecticut last week because it feels like incredible hubris to think I have any words or thoughts adequate to this tragedy. But in the face of the tragic deaths of 20 children and 6 adults, I keep coming back to the words of another child who died in the face of even greater evil:
I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again. In the meantime, I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out."
--Anne Frank
20 children will never have the opportunity to carry out their ideals as adults. 6 adults died in part because they did. And many children we never hear about are losing their lives and suffering in terrible ways around the world every day.
For this reason, those of us who have the chance to carry our ideals, must.