To the Editor:

“And so, there’s a struggle, or a context, I guess you could say, all the time, it seems to me. And remorse, well, to be able to show remorse, to be able to be sorry about what we’ve done that hurts other people, that keeps us human.” – Elizabeth Strout.

To say that you are sorry, this has happened. Or to say that you regret that this has occurred are not strong enough responses to the misery being visited upon the people of Minneapolis. I look to our leaders and our representatives to express something more. I look to Darin LaHood and Andrew Chesney to express a sense of deep regret and empathic sorrow on this blight to our national identity.

I feel shame, I feel a sense of guilt concerning this animus being visited by one American upon another. I cannot look at the latest videos showing the death of Alex Pretti with anything other than a sense of horror and moral outrage. Remorse moves us far deeper and much closer to capturing our ethical failure in permitting or merely observing such a merciless and indifferent wrongful act. Our conscience “bites us again” when we realize our complicity.

The symbol for remorse is the lily. It is thought that the tears Eve shed upon being banished from the Garden of Eden blossomed as lilies. Lilies have come to symbolize grief and remorse. A depth of feeling that realizes what harm a particular action has caused.

What I hope is that we do not just wallow in a sea of remorse. I hope what remorse will do is move us to take ownership of our actions as a nation, without making excuses or blaming others. And that the depth of feeling remorse triggers will lead us to finding a way out of this abhorrence and blight upon our national life.

- Rev. Ronald D Larson, Mt. Morris