Perhaps it is my imagination, or a misplaced notion stemming from a deep seated wish, but whatever the case, I have begun to notice a quiet in the public places I’ve visited since the senseless tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. I first noticed it in the grocery store. With the busy holiday rush folks still scurried at the same pace, still shopped with the same sense of frenzied purpose, but there was something different about it all that wasn’t there a week ago. A lady in front of me at the checkout line offered to let me go ahead of her because, as she pointed out, I only had three items and she a cart full. I watched people hold doors, sometimes for several exiting shoppers. More hands pressed bills into red kettles while wishing holiday greetings to the bell-ringers and each other. Drivers paused in parking lanes, waving as passengers stepped in front of them. People smiled–actually made eye contact and smiled as I entered the post office with an armload of parcels. Those standing in the long line showed an unusual tolerance for the wait. It has been the same everywhere I’ve gone these past five days. The Houston area is a large, hectic place and far removed from the New England town upon which so much sorrow has been visited. Yet, there is an unmistakable change. No one but the Media is bantering about gun control, or arming teachers, or anything at all remotely linked to violence, or the perpetration of it. It is as if society as a whole has grown weary of intolerance and brutality. The people I’ve encountered in the past few days seem a little sadder, a little quieter and a good deal kinder. Perhaps it is all just my imagination–or perhaps those twenty little angels have spread their wings across our country.
