… calm in the midst of chaos.

As the difficult painful task of laying to rest all the children … all the teachers … all the adults who were senselessly killed in Connecticut, we would not be human if we didn’t feel the sadness of it all.

On the blog here, I have made statements of one sort or another … on Friday – “Only Tears Today … Only Tears …”, then on Saturday – “Well Regulated Hope For The Future …” and on Sunday – “I Read “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother” …”.

And finally today … Hope in the midst of grief.

On his private page, Stephan Pastis reposted a cartoon he had done ten years ago with this quote:

I drew this Pearls strip almost ten years ago about a bus bombing in Jerusalem, but I suppose it applies just as easily to the events of last week.

But as the day progressed … in the middle of it all … there was hope.

Hope that a constructive dialog could take place. Hope that people on both sides of the typical aisles could come together.

And rethink positions.

And seek common grounds.

And find solutions.

All the while knowing that no one thing will solve the entire problem … knowing that nobody will get all of what they wanted … knowing that some action on many fronts is far preferable to no action on any fronts … we begin the dialog.

Personally, I felt the dialog was eloquently furthered by our President last night, in his speech at the vigil in Connecticut. For those of you who did not have an opportunity to hear it … here is a link. It was one of the best speeches I have ever heard.

Eloquent. Simple. Heartfelt.

We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change. We will be told that the causes of such violence are complex, and that is true. No single law — no set of laws can eliminate evil from the world, or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society.

But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely, we can do better than this. If there is even one step we can take to save another child, or another parent, or another town, from the grief that has visited Tucson, and Aurora, and Oak Creek, and Newtown, and communities from Columbine to Blacksburg before that — then surely we have an obligation to try.

Then this morning, I saw Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the Senate’s most conservative Democrat, say the following:

Seeing the massacre of so many innocent children has changed everything … Everything has to be on the table … Anyone saying they (NRA Officials) don’t want to talk and sit down and have that type of discussion is wrong (and we must be willing to) sit down and move in a responsible manner.

If you want to see the whole interview … here is a link.

And then, I saw Joe Scarborough … a long-time die-hard Conservative Republican say this …

Friday changed everything.

… as he re-evaluated his whole position on gun control and violence. If you want to see the whole video here is a link.

His words were eloquent … pointed … and heartfelt. They were every bit as well worded as the speech last night by our President.

I am proud of them all.

This is the kind of dialog in which we must engage.

For the sake of our children.

For the sake of our future.

For the sake of our hope …