Gabbard speaks on faith, public office, military service

The spirit behind the word “aloha” is key to solving many of today’s challenges, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard said at a Tuesday lecture. She represents the second district of Hawaii and serves on the Foreign Affairs, Armed Services and Homeland Security House committees.

According to Gabbard, “aloha” means “I greet you with respect and an open heart.” She suggested that Democrats and Republicans consider the phrase when working toward their objective of a strong and great country.

“We have more in common than we have that divides us,” Gabbard said. “It's a matter of getting over the divisiveness, of transcending these boxes that we place ourselves in.”

As the first Hindu member of Congress, Gabbard said she relies on the spiritual foundation built by her Catholic father and Hindu mother, who taught her the principles of both religions. Gabbard noted that she never needed to choose between the faiths since they share an essence of universal concepts with real-world applications.

“It's not about which place of worship you choose. It's not about what title you may give yourself or what label you may attach to yourself,” she said.

Gabbard noted that her parents raised her to avoid seeing titles, paychecks or material goods as measures of worth in any career path.

“The true key to success is by applying your actions and your skills and your talents to be of service to others, to have a positive impact on those around you,” she said. “If you stay very focused on this, asking yourself constantly, ‘How can I best be of service?’ and answering that question with the decisions that you make with your life, then you will experience … a deep sense of fulfillment and happiness.”

The Congresswoman added that she learned personal responsibility for solving problems while growing up.

“Don't look left and right and say, ‘Who's going to do something about this?’ Look in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘What can I do?’ ” Gabbard said.

Despite absorbing her parents' advice early on, she said she never fully understood how to apply their principles until she co-founded an environmental non-profit called Healthy Hawai?i Coalition at age 19.

The organization began in response to her anger at finding trash on beaches and other bodies of water. After leading beach clean-ups, Gabbard created an educational program to teach Hawaiian elementary students from mostly public schools about why they needed to be custodians, rather than abusers, of the environment.

Gabbard said she drew inspiration from watching comprehension dawn on her audience members’ faces.

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“That experience of seeing that change take place, even a very, very small way, made me know that this is what I wanted to do — that I wanted to try to be in a position where I could be of service, where I could make that positive impact for other people,” she said.

Gabbard said she brought her passion for environmental issues to the state legislature by running for office at 21 years old. She noted that although she received little support due to her lack of experience, her commitment and conviction allowed her to win against what people said were impossible odds. She then became the youngest person elected to a state legislature in U.S. history.

Shortly thereafter, Gabbard enlisted in the National Guard because she wanted to help fight what people said they did in the name of God around 9/11, she said, adding that she needed to make a decision once a brigade combat team in Hawaii was called for deployment to Iraq.

“It was a choice between staying in Hawaii and continuing the service that I was doing for my constituents, in a beautiful office in a beautiful place and watching close to three thousand of my brothers and sisters in arms march off to the other side of the world in combat, maybe coming home, some of them, maybe not — or leaving that behind and going with them,” Gabbard explained, adding that she chose the latter so she could contribute her part.

After serving in a medical unit on the deployment and seeing firsthand the incredibly high cost of war, she said, she developed new perspectives on the fragility of life, preciousness of time and lack of veteran experience within the House of Representatives and Senate.

These new perspectives motivated her to run for Congress, even though people again claimed she was too young and inexperienced to do so. Nevertheless, Gabbard recounted that her engagement with voters enabled her to win by a margin of 20 percent on election day.

In response to an audience question about how to better engage women in politics, Gabbard said that in general, people refrain from running for office because they mistakenly believe they must acquire a certain set of credentials.

“Ultimately, it comes down to what’s in your heart and making that personal connection with people, earning their trust and earning their confidence,” she said. “There's no special qualification other than that … you have to be focused on how you can be of service, listening to the needs of your community.”

Entitled “Faith and Public Service,” the lecture took place in the Whig Senate Chamber at noon on Tuesday and was sponsored by the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, Princeton College Democrats and the Office of Religious Life.