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How Am I Gonna Be An Optimist About This?

Over the weekend, I formed a slight addiction to this song by Bastille called "Pompeii."



And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Great clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above

But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
You've been here before?

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

---

I was on Twitter yesterday, and clicked through an image mere minutes after the Boston blasts. I don't know what I expected, exactly, but I hadn't been thinking blood. A lot of blood.

My friends were there. They left 20 minutes earlier, so they could beat the airport traffic.

I am training a new girl at work. She is wrapping up her degree from a Boston college and lives two blocks away. On Sunday, she went to take pictures of the finish line, went shopping at Marathon Sports. We saw these places on the TV screen. I teared up as I saw footage of a man pushing a wheelchair to the finish line moments after the explosion.

An eight year old boy was among the victims.

The song goes on:

Oh where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?
Oh where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?

---

Walking through my new neighbourhood on Saturday, I saw posters for a missing man. His face was cheerful, and he was described as having a "slight Irish accent." By Sunday, the posters had spread to my current neighbourhood. On Monday, they were everywhere I went. Each time I passed one, I thought, He is very loved. His people are looking for him. I felt the anxiety they must be in. I prayed they would find him safely.

Last night, his body was found in High Park.

How am I gonna be an optimist about this?

---

My coworker is going to a funeral today, for a friend who essentially died of a broken heart, driven into the ground after his wife died of cancer last year. They leave behind an eight six year old son.

Where do we begin?
The rubble or our sins?

---

Bomb blasts in Iraq and Somalia. Fighting in Syria. An earthquake in Iran.

There are days I want to close my eyes, curl up under a duvet, and wish these things could undo themselves.

But if you close your eyes,
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?


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Comments

  1. MLW11:35 AM

    A thought provoking blog. Good questions. Praise God He is our hope. We may not get answers but we can have hope.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Laura11:42 AM

    I know deeply the feeling of not being able to process tragedy. There are some stories,images and cries of anguish from my time in ICU that still haunt me. However, I can't get away from the idea and experience that our physical, temporal anguish is expressing something so much deeper and eternal. Yesterday, I found myself praying for the physicians and nurses and auxiliary staff at the trauma hospital that would have to treat all of those people. Their hearts and minds will never be the same but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. The tragedy becomes less tragic when we walk in and through the suffering in order to know Christ better because He walked in and through suffering on our behalf.

    I am especially heartbroken for your friend's, friend's son who is now an orphan. Somehow, I already know, that the Holy Spirit will make me mindful of him often.

    ReplyDelete

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