This week a school killing in the city where I grew up, Nashville, Tennessee, brought the tragedies of my country a little closer to me.

How can we expect to live up to our world leadership status when we can’t even protect school children? How can we lead the world against tyranny when we lack money for adequate water systems in some American cities? How can we support democratic movements in other countries when our own country experiences rising income inequality?

To lead the world does not require that we think we are better or more superior to other nations. It does require that we practice respect for each other and for differing opinions. No one person, government official or private citizen, has all the answers.

Democracy requires that some win elections and some lose elections. The winners have an obligation to listen to all opinions while carrying out their programs. The losers have an obligation to respect the right of the winners to govern even while respectfully disagreeing with them on some or many issues.

To squander the blessings given us by withdrawing into our corners and waiting for an opportunity to knock the other unconscious hardly produces a well governed country.

Perhaps a country governed by the people is more like a continuing race in which different teams hand off power to another team who performs better. Nobody is annihilated. The losers rest and enter the contest at a later date.