Boston

(I wrote this the day it happened just debated on putting it up)

As I sat and watched the news today about the bombing at the Boston marathon my mind immediately went back to Sandy Hook shooting and at first I got mad. I just thought it is so frustrating and heart breaking how often these horrible tragedies are happening and wondered what this world is coming to and how sad it is. I wondered if it will ever stop. It scares me to raise my children around this and want to protect them from it, but I know I cant but I can and will teach them to Be the good in the world! To counteract it with kindness. Where ever there is tragedy there is an excuse to do good.

When I heard an 8 year old was killed my heart just broke and my heart went out to that family along with all the victims. I held Parx a little closer and was even more grateful for our knowledge that families can be together forever.

Like I said about helping when needed it was amazing to see complete strangers step up and help each other. To give them the clothes off their backs, take them into their house, give them food and water, whatever the could. This kindness gives me hope,it gives me comfort to see that for every evil person out there, there are many more good ones.  That is what I will try to take away from these sad stories is that even in the midst of tragedy if you look hard enough you will always find some good.

Also on the side of being a runner I couldn't help but wonder why there, why them? Since I have attended marathons as a participant and a by stander I have felt the energy and the over whelming sence of triumph, and couldn't help but think if you were trying to bring someone down you picked the wrong group. We run to over come things, to heal, to deal with problems, to bring us closer, to help with what ever we need. If you were trying to scare them away I don't think it will work, if anything we will use that same tool to come to terms with what has happened. I pray for all of those who have been affected and even those who did this I know they have a story too and am grateful I don't have to judge them.

These started popping up all over after this happened and I just love them. I couldn't have said it better...

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers.You will always find people who are helping.” - Mr. Rogers

A Bomb Is the Opposite of a Marathon.

Runners are more than familiar with pain. It's our bread and butter. We love to hurt. We believe in endurance, in suffering, in brutal and soul-withering work.

But ours is not a violent sport.

See, there's a difference between pain and violence. Violence violates. You see it so clearly in what happened today. The morning showed pain as triumph and pain as failure. The suffering carved out on the face of Dulce Felix (what a sweet name) as her legs no longer worked, as her glory faded into defeat, as the marathon gods smote her for believing too much, for wanting too much, was noble suffering. The suffering of loss, but sensible loss, human loss. This sort of loss was not a violation because all it risked was victory -- such a small thing in the grand scheme. Sweet happiness led the race, and then faded. Such is life. It requires endurance.
 With Jeptoo we saw strength overcoming pain. We saw her, after 24 miles of hard running, run harder. We saw the glory of a healthy body at the peak of its talent, at the peak of its performance. We saw what can be, sometimes, in rare moments: a life almost without limits. A picture of fragile triumph.

The Boston Marathon is, in many ways, a celebration of human effort. We come together on Patriots Day to remind ourselves of the joy and pain of work and effort. Everyone who has taken the marathon seriously knows that to make your peace with the marathon means learning to love the grind over the result, the pain over the triumph, and the hard push over the finishing time. Marathoners embrace these things because in a race so long, there are few perfect races. Doing well is always just that: doing well. We never do our best, but we do enough. That's what endurance means.

That would have been lesson enough. But when two blasts rung out around 2pm, running experienced violence. We were violated. Those two blasts introduced pain without effort. Suffering beyond endurance. A bomb is quick, thoughtless, grotesque, impatient, unfeeling. It's all externality, no internality. All destruction, no training. All noise, no silence. All damage, no strength. A bomb is the opposite of a marathon.

We opt for violence when we can no longer endure the difficulty of living with others, the difficulty of recognizing our limits, the difficulty of being vulnerable ceaselessly to pain. To endure is to keep going in spite of those limits and the pain of life. To endure is to expose ourself to the world, to others, to the ravages of time and effort. To endure is to risk loving, to risk being loved. A marathon doesn't always have to symbolize this. Sometimes it is just a race that runners run. But this year it is more -- it is a symbol of endurance.

A bomb is the opposite of a marathon.

Tomorrow, despite the bombs, we will be running. We will be afraid, but we will not fight. Or rather, we will fight by not fighting, by choosing flight, we runners, we believers in endurance.

- JEFF EDMONDS