Mark, on Jan. 6th, seeing the officers being beaten below as he looks down the MallHey Rob, what started as a brief comment intended for your FB
page grew into this reflection on the events of Jan. 6, 2021. I hope that you will understand its length once you have read it.
Thinking of you and your brother as I wrote, I believe that you can
understand my feelings about the possibility of losing someone like
a brother.
It is hard for me to be detached regarding the incidents of last Jan. 6th, but I am improving. In the days before Jan. 6th of last year, I talked with my brother, Mark, and he told me he was flying back to DC from CA against his doctor's recommendations. He would take a red eye to minimize contact with others and take other precautions as well. His physicians wanted him to stay home in CA as he was only recently released from his hospitalization due to a fall and subsequent infection. The fall happened when he was near his home after he was out jogging on the mall in DC. The fall and subsequent infection landed him in an ICU unit for several weeks. Since becoming a congressman, he usually flies, weekly, too and from DC when the House is in session. He does not mind the commute since it gives him time to read.
In one of those weeks while he was at George Washington Hospital, I got a call from one of his sons, crying, angry, confused. He had been told to put protective clothing on and ready himself to visit one last time with his dad, my brother, as the Dr. felt that the infection was not responding to treatment. While they made their visit, I retreated to my rooftop & then to the beach to say aloud what I used to teach and call "conversational prayer.” When I needed to raise my voice, to cry, to yell, to be as honest as I could be, I needed to be alone, reminded of humility, and I had to be in prayer.
As I fell asleep that night thinking the unthinkable, "My younger brother may die?” I was reminded of my prayers earlier in the day. Within 48 hours (about 2 days), I got another call. Mark was improving, he was not "out of the woods" yet but there was reason for optimism. Weeks later he flew home to CA from DC, weakened from his weeks in ICU, but he was home, and the danger of his infection had passed. But he was now severely immunocompromised.
He would stay at home until his trip in January of 2021. Because of his being immunocompromised, and his doctor's warnings, I set my TV schedule to watch the proceedings live on Jan. 6, hoping to see or hear him speak and be reassured of his well being. I knew that he would not be on the House floor or anywhere near many members who openly and defiantly refused to wear masks. I prayed again for his safety, reassured by his prudence and reminded of a final command from his son: “If you feel unsafe somewhere, just leave.” Who could have known that the most dangerous place for him would be inside a most sacred space in our Republic, the Capital, "The Hill" named by Thomas Jefferson, "the famous Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline Hill, one of the seven hills of Rome” and a mob would dictate when and how he could leave.
He was put in a small room across, and steps from, the House floor. He would walk out of the room twice on Jan 6. The first time he took a few steps across the hall to the doorway of the House chamber to cast his vote for Speaker of the House and then return to the room. Here is a video of the moment he walked into the back of the House Chamber:
Eventually, he would be told to lock the door before leaving a second time,
to be evacuated. Between the vote for Speaker and his evacuation, he knew what was happening as he could see the mob moving down the Mall. He could see directly below where many were attacking and beating Capital Police officers and he could hear them through the door. He had then heard the shot fired through a broken window that killed a fellow citizen who had fallen for the "big lie". The officers shot ended the breach by the mob but added another fatality to the day.
It was through one of the small windows in this photo that my brother watched the mob advance while he remained in a small room off the House Chamber until evacuated, first from the mob, and then, again, a second time, from those of his “colleagues” who refused to wear masks.
As I watched this unfold in real time, I did not know of my brother’s whereabouts, only that all members of the House Floor had been evacuated. What I learned later was that those early evacuees did not include my brother as he was not on the Floor, he was in that small room off the Chamber. He was eventually evacuated to a room where his fellow Representatives gathered, but heeding his son’s advice, he left quickly as so many were not wearing masks. He was brought to another room and safety.
When I learned all this, I wondered “What would have happened if the mob had opened the doors? Walked down the hall and found where my brother was?” The more I wondered the angrier I got, especially when I heard the calls for the termination of the officer who used his weapon so that the hallway would not be breached. And yes, sometimes I knew hate for the mob's actions. I took the hate to a place that never fails me, to prayer and to “my better angels” as Lincoln said, and my brother often quotes. A year later, these disruptive spirits have been entrusted to greater and deeper powers than my own ego. I must be prudent though as I cannot listen to my fellow citizens who promote “the big lie” nor those greedy commercial and social media entities that profit from its continued existence. It is difficult though when a major political party call that days events as “legitimate political discourse”
When told of my brother's recovery from his infection, his walk back from final goodbyes, one doctor spoke of a miracle. When I heard the whole story of his time in DC on Jan. 6, I also thought of the word miracle. It was a miracle that more life was not lost that day. It was a miracle that again, my brother had gotten home from DC, safely, a second time from the danger of an infection. The second infection was and is more deadly than the first as it is clothed in righteousness and spoken with a fierce and false bravado. It lacks the medical garb, sophisticated equipment. and hushed tones of an ICU to warn of the risk to human life. This infection shows itself in the righteousness of a Christian Nationalism, the rage of “grievance” politics, and a woeful loss of what our society needs as a social contract to endure, a democracy to work: a society built on Character, not the tortured renewal of a Dale Carnegie course; it needs virtue built on a view of Agapeic Love open to all, a love meant to empower others and do no harm, not the love of TV clichés, nihilists, reactionary zealots of all political ideologies, and evangelists and certain catholic Bishops who defame the word love to weaponize it to their advantage.
Or is it too late? Is this infection of the public square spreading too deep? Is our flag too misused? Is it time to say our final goodbyes to the Republic so many have given their life to defend? My brother says no as do I. It is never too late to be steadfast, to be grateful, to believe in those you love, in a flag and a citizenship that you revere, and to recognize the Grace that is beyond our understanding and works through us, you and I, and gratefully, continues in my brothers continued public service and chosen vocation. Be well. Ted
Mark, Thanksgiving 2021, with doctors cautions and permission and fully vaccinated,
inside the Capitol, 10 months after Jan 6th. No unaccompanied visitors were allowed into the building,
so we were free to walk the corridors alone (masked except for the photo.)
