This will be brief. By now, you’ve probably seen, read, and heard quite a bit about the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon. I don’t have anything original to add except to pass on a couple of nice, brief, general views I came across. You’ve probably come across them as well, but if not, here we go…
One is by Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers. He once said that when something terrible happens, look for the helpers. There will always be helpers coming in pretty quickly. We’ve seen this every time there has been a large-scale tragedy. I had not thought of this before.
The other view that I saw is from the comedian Patton Oswalt. I had never heard of him before. He made a pretty good point that there are tons of people on earth now, over seven billion, in fact, and the good outnumber the bad. By far. He’s not saying that most people are saints; just that most people are definitely not interested in blowing other people up and killing large numbers of innocent victims. And he’s totally right.
It’s pretty easy to get down when we look at the current state of our world, even without bombs going off at marathons. When the bombs go off and people open fire in movie theaters, though, it can be almost impossible to not get down. The two points made above, though, are still true. There are always the helpers coming in right away, and the good still outnumber the bad. By far.