Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Hope for the world

The events yesterday at the Boston Marathon were stunning. That someone could be so deliberately cruel breaks my brain. Naturally, some people are turning to prayer and some are turning to vengeance. I even saw a call for genocide, by someone who leaped to the conclusion that this was an act of Islamic terrorism, and to the further conclusion that somehow killing every one of them for the actions of a few would somehow be fair. And some people, who are neither religious nor genocidal are shaking their heads with sadness, and trying to somehow find something good in it (some of us religious people are doing that in addition to the prayer.)

All I've got is this: Good shines brighter than evil. And there is SO much more good in the world than evil. So so so much. It's really hard to remember that when we live in the time of 24 hour news, and violence leads. So many old folks tell me the world is going to hell, and it wasn't like this when they were young, but I look at the crime rates, and yes, it really was. They just didn't have CNN piping it into their living rooms telling them how bad everything is.

I have hope for the world. Look at how people come together in a crisis. I do hope that we'll learn to come together without a tragedy. It might take revolution. It might take an epic disaster. I hope not.