Over the past few days, life in the public sphere has proven to challenge even the bravest. Confrontation, as a byproduct of profession and individual perspective has placed at risk personal safety in public service for those who are public servants. Protecting the common good was once an act of nobility. Such a vocational choice attracted those with family legacy, childhood merriment, and an affinity to experience the ‘wild side”, super hero influence and stuff. It was as if there was a “tipping point” of sort that moved the sway of the pendulum to a side that is so dark and unrecognizable, that few, in America, could believe that acts of violence against servant hood and their families would be possible. The numbing acknowledgment of such situations in a land of laws and respect for governance just seemed surreal.
Yes. Acts of violence is borderless, classless, genderless, and senseless, yet, even American violence, for the most part, has patterns. Recent events have taken form in a way that is of grave concern to everyone. Flooding networks is an unsettling consideration that public service has attracted a new danger. Retaliation has taken on a cloak of sadness so steep, that to get over it will take time that in its pure form will be met with endless reflections of why.
Public security over the past few months have made irrevocable demands. It required lives made to surrender to meet a public good. Now is the time to be reminded of those that serve in uniforms of all kinds to include suit and tie and a skirt and blouse as well. The need to be intentional in thought and consideration of them cannot be overstated. America is still a nation of people who believe in the power of prayer and the voice it resonates in places that are too dark to venture in at any time.
Casting a purposeful resolve to exercise a few moments of selflessness as often as possible- smart phones, diary aps, ipads- are all props to jog our memory, reminding us that we are a keeper of our neighbor and we’re all in “life” together. When we see public servants fighting to make life better for the less
fortunate, or are providing public protection for their communities and its people and country, be reminded of the sacrifice. They do not serve in a vacuum; they serve alongside the caring resolve of their families.
Included in their consideration before accepting a call to public service, is the role their loved ones are to play. In America, that role is as help meet and friend and not as a co-partner assigned with the same risk. What is being reconsidered now, is their expanding, for the families of public servants, a hazardous role of association. And, will the potential of this role impede future progress of recruitment, assignment or employment.
As we look forward to the days and weeks, months and years ahead, the real “tipping point” is to believe that when people are at their worse, the door for compromise will swing open wide enough that cooler heads will prevail.