I've deleted the post about the explosions in Boston. . .just about
everything that is being reported is either false or unconfirmed. . .I thought that the info was solid. Apparently not.
However, the need for prayer is certainly solid enough!
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I suppose New Orleans people could understand the atmosphere better than anyone else. The Marathon occurs on a state holiday. All the schools in the state are closed for the week. Many businesses in the towns the race paces through don't require people to come in because a major east-west street is closed so going north-south is impossible.
ReplyDeleteThe course is lined from beginning to end with people cheering. If you have a house on the route - you have a marathon party. If you're a restaurant or bar you open at 6 am so people can get to you before the roads close. In the early part of the course people offer the runners water or oranges. By the colleges, they offer beer. It's like a 26 mile long block party. Runners were taking pictures as they ran by us.
The week before the race the paper is filled with human interest stories - the Hopkinton elementary schools that learn Kenyan dances. The 5th generation marathoner. The guy who drums for the whole race - he hasn't lived there for 3 years but the owner welcomes him back for race day because it's a tradition.
Everyone knows someone who is running - either they worked really hard to qualify or they worked really hard raising money for charity.
A friend and I took our kids down to cheer on an internet friend of hers who after 3 years of training finally qualified. She finished just minutes before the blast and came by us in the middle of the time we were cheering (it's 27,000 runners, starting in staggered waves, it takes hours for them all to go by.) So all those happy people we cheered on- the ones who came over and slapped the kids hands, the ones in the goofy costumes, the ones who were already struggling, the ones who wrote taped their names to their shirts; all of them proud - those were the ones around the finish line when the explosion happened.
The Wall Street Journal had a headline "It's like 9/11". It is in a way they didn't think of. Two of those planes were from Boston and so after it happened there was the waiting to find out who was on the planes. It's was going to be a friend or a friend of a friend. It's the same now. Waiting to find out who. A woman in my mom's group - both parents in ICU, one doing okay, one not. Because it's school vacation week (for the whole state) and all normal extracurricular activities are canceled in favor of vacation camps, some people are out of state; so word is spreading slowly. You start Facebook or open your e-mail with a feeling of dread, wondering who. I didn't wait for names to start praying because all of the injured and dead - they're all ours. They were at our party.
And New Orleans people I'm sure know this long after the media attention has moved on, long after the supportive Facebook memes have stopped, long after it's receded to ancient history in everyone else's minds, the people who were affected will still remember - vividly. Pray for them.
Marie
I realized a couple hours after I wrote my previous comment it could be interpreted as being dismissive of what New Orleans has been through. That wasn't my intent.
ReplyDeleteI'm aware that Katrina directly affected thousands more people, that it damaged the infrastructure in ways that have not yet been completely made right, that it was a much worse blow to the city. I was just thinking that having survived that, the people would have understanding of this.
Marie
Marie, thanks for your great post. I'm from Boston and here at the monastery I've tried to explain what Patriot's Day/Marathon day is. It's something unique.
ReplyDeleteI am comforted by how many people IMMEDIATELY went toward the scene of carnage and began helping without thought of themselves. And people injured who tried to help others. St. Thomas says that most moral acts are good and he is right. People are good.
Here in NJ it reminds me of 9/11 in many ways. For days we wondered if something else would happen. And waiting to hear if neighbors and friends were safe, etc. (This area of NJ had a lot of deaths.) There is really no way to describe it.
But we have the gift of prayer and God's love! It's all we really need.