A Very Good Day in Syria

Like so many of my countryfolk in the USA and like my wife tearing and torn up by the bombings in Boston and the carnage, including, as both random and wartime violence always seem to, the death and destruction of children and the devastation of lives that wanted little more than to live in peace, raise children in peace, snd grow old and die with dignity, I was pained by the explosions in Boston. Like many of the people I met yesterday, visitors to my office, cyberfriends on line, family in correspondence, and colleagues at a meeting, last night, I thought first of those I know who might be affected. 'Good that my Brother was busy celebrating the beginning of one of the years of his post-70 life and not running the Boston as he had when he was just a little younger.' 'Good that my younger son was able to pick up his kids at school and get them to their home away from Boston.' 'Good that my cyber-colleague's daughter wasn't hurt in the health tent at the finish line.' and 'Wonderful to hear that my colleague's daughter and her boyfriend were perennially late getting to events and that she wasn't visiting them in Boston from Philly ... for she's always on time.' It hadn't occurred to me till now that I can even imagine feeling relieved that my cardiac arrhythmias keep me from entering any long races, any longer. Good to hear my Iranian friend and colleague say what many of us who belong to Ethnic minorities will say ... 'It will be good if whoever did this turns out to be from some other Ethnic minority or politically motivated group.' Like so many, I am caught in what nature and my self preservative instincts have in store for me ... taking care of those near and dear to me. Still, how do I integrate that what occurred yesterday in Boston represented the best of days in Syria's civil crisis, a super day in Iraq's tormented years both before and after the redemption by America's Shock and Awe campaign from almost ten years ago. How do I balance my own normal narcissism with the fact that if I count bodies, Boston on Marathon Day in 2013 was a typical, if less dramatic day in major cities around the USA. How do I find rest for my National Chauvinistic tendencies that has myself and many others deaf to the carnage in other places? How often have I heard foreign tragedies objectified with political arguments. Busses blown up in Southeast Asia. Little girls disfigured and killed in India and Pakistan and Africa. The years of terror induced in Israel, the PA and Gaza ... bombs and busses ... rockets doing their damage .... Those of us Playing in the Last Quarter have listened to the messages of Simon and Garfunkle's Christmas song with its almost subliminal remembrances of the number of Viet Cong killed. We have heard our talking head newstypes reading off Statistics about the numbers who died. As the generations pass, our progeny will study these years in History or even poetry ... Achilles and Agamemnon types will rise and the word Hero will be used on the winning sides. Jepthah may be remembered for his war campaign against the Midianites but the sacrifice of his daughter who wanted little eose than to be able to go hiking with her girlfriends in the mountains before being sacrificed to Ba'al or some other god will rarely be read from Judges. There is an enormous price we ultimately pay for our Narcissism. And still ... yesterday in Boston can only be described as a very good day in Damascus.