When I first read of the shootings in Arizona, my response is visceral. "See, this is what happens when you use violent rhetoric in your politicking, " I rail. 

For a few moments, I do not see Gabrielle nor do I see Christina and John. They are on the periphery of my awareness as I am so angry.  If you look at the spectrum of natural human instinctual responses of fight, flight or freeze, I tend toward the fight response.   

Yet, as I begin to read and the details fleshed themselves out, I see that Jared Loughner’s writings were similar to the notes my high school boyfriend left on my car and in mailboxes of family and friends after he began to hear voices in his head and before he died of suicide. I can no longer place the blame solely on Sarah Palin's map of political targets because mental illness has its own story of inner terror.

What strikes me as the day goes on, is the synchronicity of the events.  I will leave it to the law to determine what led to these senseless killings and to the pundits to chew through the political and cultural fallout. 

Spirituality looks for meaning that may be elusive to the naked eye...it invites us into ourselves into places which we avoid seeing.  It looks to the cosmos and tries to find meaning in chaos and order. 

So I look for patterns and wonder about what is underneath. Consider the events:

The shootings took place in the state that is currently at the center of one our most contentious debates: immigration. 

Gabrielle 's opponent holds an M16 shooting event in which supporters can fire a rifle to “get on target with victory.”

She was listed on Sarah Palin's map of crosshairs that identifies opponents to “target.”

She had a glass door broken recently and had received death threats.

Judge John Roll had to receive protection after he agreed to take on a controversial case in which immigrants sued a rancher.

Jared Loughner was described as left leaning by those who knew him even as unsubstantiated reports emerge that he has ties with a white racist group.  

He listed The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf on his favorite books list...books of opposites

Catherine, the 9 year-old child who was killed, was born on 9/11, a day in which violent rhetoric erupted and birthed in our nation, but a few days of unity.

She had just made her First Holy Communion and was at the rally because she had just been elected to student council and wanted to learn about the political process.

I then read the Comments sections of blogs and news which house our most  base, knee jerk reactions.  Many Sarah Palin supporters on her Facebook page blame "haters" on the left who blame her for a random act of violence by a mentally ill man. 

Many on the left blame "haters" on the right who use gun language and imagery which, throughout history, has created a climate which seems to invite violence by its very presence.  

The Old Turtle 

This morning, I lie in bed after an apocalyptic dream.  Shaken, I remember a book I used to read my children called The Old Turtle.  In the book, the mountains, the river and rocks and the animals on the planet have an ARGUMENT about the nature of God.  The mountain says  "God is a snowy peak, high above the clouds," while the river argues that  "God is a river who flows through the very heart of things." 

As the argument escalates, an Old Turtle stays silent and when the volume reaches its peak, it says, "STOP." 

So I stop. I consider something called the Law of Three which is both practical and spiritual. It's a trinitarian law which says that the answer is hidden in the problem and you find it by looking at the polarities...opposing forces if you will. 

The third force, the reconciling force, births the Fourth Way.  It is not about mushy compromise because it does not "meet in the middle."  Nor does it place attention on canceling out the resistance.  It allows  the polarities to exist as they are for they are the very forces that engender the third force which birth a whole new way of seeing.

It demands the seer let go of identifications to either perspective because if we are attached to one perspective, we cannot see the reconciliation for we are third force blind.  It requires silence.

I silence my thoughts and the reconciling third force...the spiritual response... to this tragic Saturday emerges.  It is embedded in the story of the Old Turtle. 

I can't stamp out my anger for it is part of the story.  When I stop and pause, I feel my anger, and the blame and my helplessness.  I feel the horrible sense of loss and senselessness.  I shake my proverbial fist and shout the visceral, "NO." I feel my country torn apart by polarities and shouting. 

I sense into the part of myself that wants to numb the pain with food and drink and intellectualism and indifference.  I observe the part of me that wants to write a righteous post on Facebook.  Then, I slow enough to see Gabrielle, Christine, John, Gabe, Dorothy, Dorwin and Phyllis.  The families who have lost life as they knew it.   

When I allow these polarities in the privacy of my own home, I see the answer and it's the answer of the Old Turtle. 

STOP. 

The instinctual, visceral, hair trigger responses are part of me, but I do not have to take them to the public sphere and add to the clamor.  

I am part of a collective that celebrates fast, trigger like response and quick assessments and immediate blame.  On a personal level, I am temperamentally disposed to speed and quickness. 

Yet, when I stop, I hear voices I couldn't hear amidst the which deepen my understanding. They shift my perspective as new insights spring forth. 

I ask myself, " What is this tragedy telling us about who we are? What is this tragedy telling me about who I am?"   I am thinking this will take some time.  

Pause and discernment,  the third force require slowing down.  They require reflection in order to hear what is behind the clamorous voices. 

The Old Turtle speaks in a voice that "rumbled loudly, like thunder...and whispered softly like butterfly sneezes." 

He reminds the creatures of the earth, who are angry and confused that we are connected to one another...to God...to the earth. 

It is a memorable plea for peace.  It is a reminder that opposites themselves birth a new way of seeing.  It is a reminder to Stop.  To deepen into the silence whose only response is to stand in Love and be present to the suffering, the joy and the confusion.  To be fully here now.

I wrote my grad school thesis on contemplation and compassionate action and I proposed that we can't have one without the other....contemplation requires action and action requires contemplation.  It is a dynamic organism of relationship.  Each is born in a pause.   Each is born in silence.  

The Old Turtle closes with these words: "And after a long, lonesome, scary time...the people listened, and began to hear.  And to see God....Love....in one another...and in the beauty of all the Earth."  

In the pause, we remember who we are.