The Privilege of Living. And Running.

I don’t even know what to say this morning. At this time yesterday, I was so inspired after watching the elites run the Boston Marathon while I trudged along on my treadmill. Then, just a few hours later, I started seeing e-mails on the Ultralist about explosions. What? I couldn’t quite piece together what they were referring to, thinking there must have been some sort of gas explosion.

But only minutes later, I started understanding what was going on – someone had planted bombs at the Finish of the marathon course – the spot that is most congested with spectators. And, at a time in the marathon where it is most crowded with finishers.

And it was intentionally done to cause suffering.

Isn’t life difficult enough without intentionally causing harm to others? Don’t we all wake up every day and try to do right by ourselves and others, to be productive while we can, and to do what we were put on this earth to do? Why does anyone feel that spending his time and energy to hurt or destroy others serves any purpose whatsoever?

I just can’t wrap my head around it.

The act of living  – loving well, living deeply, and trying to put as much as I have into not wasting this life I have been given – takes all the energy I have. I just can’t see how someone believes their life has more meaning by destroying someone else’s.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe they feel like the only way to have meaning is to steal it from someone else. And I don’t know how we solve that.

But, I do know that I can keep trying to love well, keep trying to live like it is a privilege to be here.

And I can keep running. Because that is a privilege, too.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all the runners, their families, the many injured spectators, the medical teams and law enforcement who responded so quickly and decisively, and all the people of Boston who were impacted by yesterday’s tragedy.

Tagged as: Boston Marathon