"...O Beautiful, For......"

Ricky Fitts came to mind today.

The young character in the movie "American Beauty" who was clearly a very old soul and who spoke one of the more iconic lines of dialogue in the film.

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."

Beauty.

A very curious thing.

A life mosaic tile that simply will not be denied, even when its appearance seems inappropriate, even obscene.

As the terrible, acrid smoke of Glock gunfire finally vanishes from an Arizona supermarket parking lot, details about those wounded and killed begin to emerge and, in those details, the beauty that finds its way out of bedlam.

The beauty of sacrifice...76 year old Dory Stoddard, a retired construction worker who, after being shot in the head, fell toward his wife to shield her from madness, most likely saving her life while losing his own.

The beauty of selflessness...Daniel Hernandez, a trained nurse, interning for the Congresswoman who, while inside the store, heard gunfire and rushed toward, not away from. the madness, reaching her side quickly, applying pressure to the wound, keeping her alert, assisting in getting her out of there and, most likely, saving her life.

The beauty of courage...several bystanders who tackled the madman and brought him down, even as he calmly attempted to go about the business of reloading the Glock and emptying another 30 bullet magazine, risking their own lives and, most likely, saving the lives of countless others.

The beauty of poignancy...Christina Taylor Greene...9 years old...newly elected to her school's student council, excited about learning the political process..only to die young and unexpectedly on a day that American history will record as an assault on all of us...having been born on a day that American history records as an assault on all of us...

September 11, 2001.

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in."

The movie doesn't say anything about Ricky Fitts being from Arizona.

Doesn't matter.

He is.

And so are we.