Respect is something I have written about before.  It is a subject that is personally very important to me and I firmly believe that if the rest of the world felt the same way – it would be a far, far better world.

The incredible, life-altering power of respect was made crystal clear, last week, on Tuesday, August 20th in an elementary school in Georgia, just outside Atlanta.  If you have not heard this story, then you really, really need to go look up the details.  It is an amazing story and that is NOT an exaggeration!

I want to focus on one aspect of the story that has not been directly mentioned in the news much if at all, and that is the respect element to the story and how, when it was used with honesty and love, it was more powerful than any gun.

On that Tuesday morning, a 20 year old gunman came into the front office of the school with an AK-47 (he may have had other guns as well) and at least 500 rounds of ammunition.  He was clearly there to commit mass murder.  In the front office that day (even though she originally was not supposed to be there but ended up being there as a result of a scheduling change at the last minute) was a woman by the name of Antoinette Tuff.  We have since learned that she was one of a few school administrators that had received some training on how to deal with a crisis situation, but let’s be honest – what she does goes well beyond any training any school administrator would ever take part in.

Standing in front of her is a troubled young man who is heavily armed and clearly intent on killing as many people as possible.  We know the whole story because she was on the phone with a 911 operator and the time and her entire conversation with the gunman was recorded of course.  At first, when in a moment of frustration he goes outside and fires his weapon into the ground, she asks the 911 operator if she should take this opportunity to run.  The vast majority of us would have seized the opportunity to run and save ourselves.  But she stays as he walks back into the office!

She then proceeds to talk to him and try and calm him down.  Listen to the entire conversation and you will see something truly amazing.  She treats him with love and respect!  She sees him for what he really is, a troubled fellow human being and tells him about the struggles she has dealt with in her life, making it clear that she wants to help HIM.  Seriously…?!  Again – a vast, vast majority of us would be thinking about ways to either flee from him or hurt or kill the gunman, but she, through the strength of her character – reaches out to him and treats him with the respect that he deserves as a fellow human being!  In later interviews she credits her faith and the strength she received from God in that situation.  While I believe that was true, I also believe that she was still acting in a way that was true to her character.  God may have given her the strength to do what she did- but who she truly was as a person was what He strengthened.

Here is verbatim what she says to him towards the end after he has agreed to give up and lie down on the floor so the police can come in and arrest him:  “It’s going to be all right, sweetie.  I just want you to know I love you, though, OK? And I’m proud of you. That’s a good thing that you’re just giving up and don’t worry about it. We all go through something in life.”

Read that again.  She actually tells him she loves him…!  I would be willing to bet that virtually none of us when faced with a mentally unbalanced, heavily armed gunman, intent to kill us, would tell him that we love him and go on to say that we are proud of him for now doing the right thing and not harming anyone.  The cynical (and I would add – heartless) among us would have you believe that she (having been trained) was simply acting a part, and was therefore telling him things to calm him down so that he wouldn’t hurt her.  I say that is complete 100%, Grade A, directly off the stable floor – bullshit!

The NRA has said time and time again that the only way to stop a badman with a gun – is a good person with a gun.  While it is hard to argue the cold, simplistic and narrow-minded logic of that – I think on August 20th we were given a powerful reminder that there are things that, when we recognize the humanity in another person, can do that are far more powerful and with greater positive results than reacting to anger and aggression with more of the same.

A lone woman, fearing for her life, used RESPECT to disarm a heavily-armed gunman with the intent to kill, and saved many lives (including his) in the process.

Think about that…

Now, before some of you start thinking, “Ahhhh, poor Tim.  He must be getting a head start on senility.  He must have meant to say ‘Explore Your NeighborHOOD’ and not neighbor…” I will tell you that I, in fact, meant to say just that.

By now, I am sure any of you loyal readers will have noticed a number of themes that appear regularly in each of the sections of our blog.  One that we clearly believe strongly in is the idea of exploration.  Quite simply – the world is a great big playground and since we are curious people, we here at the Transmogrifier believe there is no doubt that we are meant to explore every bit of our world.  That desire to explore and the world to be explored is one of the very best things about our jobs here.

Obviously, exploration can be a scary thing.  The thing that makes it scary is the (insert dramatic music sound effect here)  the unknown…  We are both intrigued by what is on the other side of that mountain in front of us and scared of what may be lurking there.  This is not a new idea at all.  If you doubt me, take a look at old maps.  It was a widely held fear before Magellan circumnavigated the globe, that if you sailed too far you would fall off the edge of the world.  And to make it extra scary, map makers of the time put ravenous sea monsters at the edges of the maps to reinforce the fear of the unknown.

From the 500 year old map known as Carta Marina. Presumably the sailors are hoping the sea monsters will eat the cargo and not them.  My guess is the cargo is really just an appetizer.

While we all understand that exploration has both risk and reward and it is that combination of the two in unique proportions that taunts us to do things like climb Mount Everest, why is it that we rarely see the challenge in getting to know people as a worthy exploration?

Yes- people (especially those we do not know) can be even more scary than sea monsters, but I will bet that all of us can think of a great story of when we took a risk and spoke to someone.  That may have started out scary or hard, but then turned out to be a wonderful experience, and may have even led to a life-long relationship in some cases.  A blind date leads to a marriage.  A suicide leads to a strong friendship among those that dealt with it.  Offering a homeless guy a chance to stay somewhere on a cold winter night leads to a friendship and a life saved.

I am not naive, clearly good things do not happen every time or even a lot of the time when we risk reaching out to people.  Just like the risk that comes with exploring the world, there is real risk in getting to know people.  But the rewards can be so much greater than a cargo hold full of spices (that was what Magellan’s crew saw as their dream goal and why they were willing to take the risk of falling of the Earth.)

I am not suggesting that we spend every waking hour walking up to complete strangers and offering to be their BFF, but certainly we can agree that if we at least change our perspective of people we do not know from a virtual map with sea monsters, to the chance to discover and explore, that will be a step in the right direction.  This applies to those who look different, talk different, and even have different views, customs and beliefs.  If we see those people as a chance to explore and get to know them, rather than scary and unknown, there is no telling where you might go next.

So that nice, cute waitress who smiles at you – talking to her is like stepping up onto a pitcher’s mound compared to the Everest that is talking to the homeless guy who smells of urine and stale beer.  Both deserve our time and both deserve to be treated with respect.

Go ahead – talk to someone you don’t know and see what is at the edges of that map…

Words.  They are everywhere. Spoken and unspoken.  Words mean something different to different people.   When I say “no” to my toddler son I am very clear about what I mean.  On the other hand, to him, “no” means “yes, do whatever it is you are doing even more! Actually, add another inappropriate action as well!”.    When someone says “rusty” to me, I get excited and think it must be beautiful. Show me the rust!   To someone else, “rusty” might have a negative connotation, meaning dilapidated, junky, unworthy of notice or even dangerous.  When someone hears that part of my work is photography, they assume that the websites are just a bunch of pretty pictures.  Well, they are kind of right!   But our websites are more than just pretty pictures.

Our team at The Transmogrifier loves words.  All of our images have keywords and descriptions attached to them.   We get to look at an image and come up with as many descriptive and informative words as possible.  We pride ourselves on these words being accurate.  Our team wants users to count on these words being accurate.  Our goal is to not only provide inspiration to other creative people with our images, but also to inform others with our images, giving background and interesting information on each photo.   With over 50,000 combined images on our Textures website and Imagery website…each with keywords and descriptions attached to them…well, that’s a lot of words.

Without words I wouldn’t be writing this, and you wouldn’t be reading this.  You might even be wondering how many more words I’ll use to get to the end!   Words can give us strength.  Words can undermine our strength.  Words can change our days.  Words can change our lives.  Words inform, educate, and entertain.  Words incite emotions and encourage action.

I’ll use just a few more words to ask for your action.  We are proud of the work we’ve built and the culture of quality and variety we are creating in our network of websites.   We are humbled by the support and encouragement of our families.   Now we need you to use your words and tell anyone and everyone you know about our work, the websites and this blog.  Words are powerful.  Word-of-mouth is influential.  Please share yours.  (377 words not including this word count!)

*Perhaps this was a borderline non-philosophical entry.