We Are Boston

Yesterday I started a blog with all ideas of finishing it and publishing it today. It was a whiner - but somewhat funny. I was complaining about waiting at a doctor's office. Needless to say it got tabled. Whining is not appropriate while the nation mourns, again.

The first two years we were married, I spent more time in Boston than I did with my husband. I adore that city. The horror yesterday struck home because I spent so much time there, but doesn't it strike each of us? We realize the insanity of simply being someplace, and horror strikes at the whim of madmen. Then I realized that today is the anniversary of the Virginia Tech horror. Yesterday I wrote the following on our Facebook page:
Courage...cowardice...can any two words convey more difference? Our hearts go out to all affected by the tragic events today in Boston. We are grateful for the courage displayed by the first responders, and saddened by the cowardice causing this. 

As each of us do, I have concerns - a brother whom I adore is in the hospital. I have driving teenagers in high school - enough said there. I watch my father, once the smartest man I knew, struggle with where he is, and am I his daughter or his granddaughter - not the way I imagined the anti-aging cream to be working. Life isn't easy, but we seem to have forgotten that it isn't easy for any of us, and a little compassion towards one another, and their struggles, seen or unseen, is a sign of the humanity in each of us.

I, as so many others, do not understand how humanity has devolved into this. Why are the solutions found through violence? Have we miserably failed at teaching how to disagree peacefully?  Our pastor, Dr. Doug Cushing, taught an incredible series on this prayer. I try to remember this prayer - somehow there's always a line which hits home. I'm not always successful (remember the part about having teenagers...), but I try. Please indulge me, because the lessons contained within it are applicable whether you believe or not:

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

To the first responders, to the ones there who simply did the right thing and helped - Thank you, and God bless. May we each have what is in your heart.  I do pray for the ones who did this evil act - because they need prayers, also. All of us are Boston, and Virginia Tech, and New York City, and the Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA...and please may the madness end.