The Gift of Another Day

I was working on some photography project when my friend Gwen called and told me about the events in Boston.  Oh no, I thought - another bad guy- someone determined to hurt as many innocents as possible for some strange, amorphic reason that will make no sense to reasonable people.

In the face of these tragedies I always feel an immediate desire to talk to my family, just to hear their voices. I think about my friends and say thankful prayers that we are all safe. I wonder why it happened "there" and not "here".

I am well aware that life is not fair, that there are bad people in the world and that each of us is vulnerable to the vagaries that guide the lives of people who don't care who they harm. I try to make sense of a senseless act;  I blame the war, the influence of money in our political system, the  inflammatory speech and the lack of civility in American discourse.

At some point in my rumination, I remember the vast majority of us are caring people.  This time I saw the evidence of people's goodness in the acts of the very people who were the target of the Boston attack - those who ran toward the explosion to help the injured, the business owners who offered support for people who lost their belonging, and the hotel managers and homeowners who offered a place for strangers to sleep.

Those of us who were not in Boston yesterday, or in Waco this afternoon have another chance, a chance to winnow out the chaff and focus on the important elements in our lives, a chance to make a difference in our community and in our world, a chance to say "I love you" to the special people in our lives.  We, the lucky ones, have been given the gift of another day to care, to love and to make a difference.