New Zealand is a nation that counts its annual totals of gun homicides in single digits, as a friend of mine who just returned from a visit Down Under accurately notes. It is, by comparison to most of the world, an incredibly peaceful, peace-loving country. Yet two days ago, on Friday, March 15, an Australian white nationalist allegedly killed 50 people and wounded 39 others in a mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, the largest city on the South Island. This same city lost 185 people in a series of earthquakes in 2011, but that was a natural disaster. While it delivered painful lessons about building standards and preparedness, it did not hang the specter of evil over the city or the nation. Brenton Harrison Tarrant is alleged to have done exactly that. Christchurch is a city in shock and mourning.

I don’t ordinarily use this blog to discuss mass shootings, bombings, and terrorist incidents. For one thing, they have become too common in some parts of the world, including, sadly, the United States, and I prefer to spend my limited time trying to use my special expertise to make the world a better place to whatever extent I can. That expertise lies largely in urban planning and natural hazards, not in terrorism or crime, but readers will notice that I also discuss more pleasant topics like travel and books and the arts. I write a blog because I am also a professional writer.

But some events become more personal. In 2008, at the invitation of the Centre for Advanced Engineering in New Zealand (CAENZ) at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, I accepted a three-week Visiting Fellowship to work with CAENZ on land-use policy for addressing natural hazards in New Zealand. In late July and the first half of August of that year, I traveled the country with Kristin Hoskin, then a member of the CAENZ staff and currently an emergency management consultant who lives in Christchurch. I delivered seven lectures and seminars in those three weeks, visiting several cities on a tour that ended in Christchurch, which did not experience its earthquakes until more than two years later. In the course of much advance reading and a great deal of inquisitive conversation and exchange with Kristin and others, I learned a great deal about the country. When I left, I was aware that, while it faces challenges and problems like any other nation, it generally does so through remarkably civil debate and politics. While I realize that New Zealand benefits, in that regard, from its relatively small size—about two-thirds the area of California and a population of roughly 4.2 million—I still must say, as an American, that my own country could easily learn something about civil behavior from the Kiwis. Far too much of our own current political debate is not only over the top, but downright crude and thoughtless.

And so I reacted, when I learned of the shootings in Christchurch, like someone who had, on an emotional level, been stabbed in the heart. It was hard even to picture the scene that was being painted on the news. I tried to imagine the horror felt by people like Kristin, and George Hooper, the executive director of CAENZ when I was visiting, or others I had met around the country. I will admit it brought tears to my eyes thinking about it. How could it happen?

I first got the urge to write about it on Saturday but did nothing about it. I labored to produce a title, then sat there, staring at the screen. Mind you, I am not one who ordinarily wrestles with writer’s block. The words often come pouring out, and the challenge is simply to edit and refine them. But this time, I could not get started. Two or three times, I stared at the screen but wrote nothing. It was too hard. More than ever, I am filled with admiration for the young people from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, who found their voice after the mass shooting there, or others who have similarly taken action after violent tragedies. It is not easy. But it is extremely important. And if New Zealanders respond positively to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s promise to tighten gun laws, then they are far ahead of the tortured American politics that have stood in the way of gun reform in the U.S.

I would also note that I am spurred by some of what I have read today in the Chicago Tribune. One article recites the story of Abdul Aziz, 48, a father of four sons and a member of the Linwood mosque, who shouted, “Come here!” to lure the gunman away from the mosque, risking his own life, and who stunned the man by throwing a credit card machine, which he said was the first thing he could find, at the shooter’s car, shattering the window. Other stories of courage will probably emerge in coming days, but it is a reminder to all of us that such courage is not tied to any one religion, race, or nationality. It reflects depth of character.

That is the saddest part of it all. There are those among us, and they hide within a wide variety of identities, whether it is Islamic extremism, white nationalism, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or Hindu tribalism, or some other perceived affiliation that somehow fosters hatred instead of a common love of humanity, who fill the void in their own emotional and intellectual development with a fear of others that causes them to fail to see our common humanity. The justifications vary, but one common thread is paranoia and a painful, even crippling, inability to reach out and open their hearts to those different from themselves, whether in language, skin color, national origin, gender, religious belief, or some other supposedly defining characteristic.

And every so often, that sense of separateness and need for a feeling of superiority erupts in an attack against people who are simply living their own lives, worshiping as they believe they should, but have done nothing to the perpetrator(s). In the case of Dylann Roof in Charleston, members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church welcomed him into a Bible study before he unexpectedly opened fire on them and killed nine people. Welcome was greeted with murder.

The real miracle of God is when his worshipers responded to such violence by insisting that more love is the answer. The Charleston survivors chose to forgive Dylann Roof. People suffering such attacks are certainly entitled to ask, “Why?” Even, and most certainly, “Why us?” That is a vital part of the grieving process. But don’t be surprised if New Zealanders, and the Muslims of Christchurch in particular, insist that love is the only path forward.

Because it is.

Jim Schwab