Virginia Tech terrified me. Aurora angered me. But after Newtown broke my spirit, I decided that in order to survive in this uncertain world, and to continue to go to movies, work, school, and out in public, I was going to have to come up with a new way to see things. Fred Rogers is the greatest American who ever lived, and I thought his oft-facebooked quote seemed like a good way to keep my soul from being dragged into a dark place by a small handful of people who so desperately want to push it there.
So, although I kept my news exposure to a minimum yesterday, here is what I saw with my newly disciplined eyes:
I saw 27,000 people decide to devote time and resources to pursuing a difficult physical challenge, many of them raising money for charitable causes as part of their effort.
I saw tens of thousands of other people come out in droves to cheer them on.
I saw a bomb blast, caught on video by countless smart phones and digital cameras, and then saw dozens of police, national guards, and race volunteers run immediately into the smoke. I saw them battle through temporary fencing, rip it down in their drive to get to a place where a bomb just went off, apparently too caught up in rescue-mode to think about the potential for danger to their own bodies.
I saw the hospitals of Boston somehow set up triage and operating rooms to care for a larger magnitude of seriously wounded people than they could possibly have been designed to handle.
I saw thousands of people in Boston open homes to the stranded, to feed them, house them, drive them around.
I saw social media platforms immediately designed to help families and loved ones find each other after the blast.
I saw millions of people, far from the chaos, flock to charities and social media, to provide monetary and emotional support. I saw recent victims of chaos in other cities and towns in this country project messages of solidarity, and vow to use their experiences to make Boston’s recovery easier, faster, more gentle.
. . . And I saw the work of one person (or small group of people) who planted these bombs.
Millions > one
Love > hate
Call me a drippy hippy, but that’s what I have decided to focus on today. What a beautiful world.
Love this post. Thank you.
Fred Rodgers IS totally amazing. It makes me really want to meet his mother. She must have been one saintly woman.