If I were the President of the United States, and had to spend a day in Air Force One traveling to Ohio and then to Texas in order to visit the victims of two mass shootings, I wonder what I’d be feeling and thinking as I flew 30,000 feet plus over this blessed land, home to 325,000,000 human beings…

I like to think I’d be feeling deepest sorrow as I reflected on each life forever changed by bone-shattering bullets.

I like to think I’d get outside of myself long enough to demonstrate genuine compassion for and understanding of others.

I like to think I’d be asking what more I could do, in my position, to keep these atrocities from happening, and that I’d be reviewing all of my assumptions about what works and what doesn’t work so I could re-examine them in the days to come.

I like to think I’d be asking my advisors to come up with creative and doable ideas–ideas that a majority of Americans would likely support–to limit gun violence.

I like to think I would set wheels in motion to again allow the Centers for Disease Control to track and study gun violence so action and legislation can be based on real information.

I like to think I’d reflect on the epidemic of violence of all kinds in our society, and determine at least to use my voice to speak against it.

I like to think I’d ask myself what I could say and do to lower tensions between Americans so we can have reasonable and respectful debates about how to reduce the likelihood that we will kill one another.

I like to think I’d listen respectfully to those who respectfully speak their differences with me, and let those who seem to me to be doing nothing more than shouting in order to get attention to carry on…at least for today. Tomorrow, I like to think I’d think, will be soon enough for me (and for my staff) to shout back at them.

I like to think that because I genuinely want to focus on those who are suffering, I’d let reports of my visit stand on their own. I like to think I do not have to constantly write my own reviews, that I can let who I am speak for itself.

I like to think I’d be quiet and sit in silence for long periods of time as we flew from here to there, maybe staring out my window upon the land we all love. Maybe I’d pray–I like to think that I would–for victims, families, first responders, communities, the USA…and for myself.

That’s at least the start of what I like to think I’d think and feel in my time in the air–above it all, yet immersed in it all.