What The World Needs Now….
Today is an off day; I guess we’re all entitled to them. But since I write for a living, I get to use this platform as my therapy. Today, I need it. You might need it too.
I have been glued to the TV all day, watching events unfold in Boston where authorities are trying to bring to a close, the stand-off with one of two men suspected of planting the bombs at the Boston Marathon (one of them was killed fleeing police; you can get updates here).
One of the things I can’t get out of my head and heart, is the potential for further damage and not necessarily physical in nature.
Two men did a terrible, terrible thing and while details are still emerging, we are learning that these men, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev fled Chechnya and came to the United States years ago. There are reports the two are Muslims, having been raised in an area where there was much Islamic insurgency.
An uncle of the young men was horrified.
It’s easy, even justified I think, for us to be angry; we want answers and we want them now! The hard part is there may be none. We may never know why two men with hearts hardened by hate would carry out such an unspeakable and deadly act. The news that trickles out over the coming days, weeks, months, may be truth, may be speculation and it may be incendiary. But I can’t help but think whatever it is, we as a country, need to proceed with caution, using a restraint that was not afforded the victims of the Boston bombings. We must guard against the urge to paint a group of people who are ethnically or religiously different from us, with a broad brush. In this case, while these Muslim men may have committed these atrocities, their beliefs could not be further from the truth of Islam.I didn’t want to get into a whole religious or philosophical debate; I only want to remind us all that there are good people of every race, religion, belief. There are also bad ones, as was evidenced by this horror.
As hard as it is, we must not let evil and hate prevail. We’re simply better than that.
Praying for peace
Rene
