By Matthew Patrick, Columnist
The Boston Marathon bombing re-opened some of the wounds that a lot of us have in relation to terror attacks. Immediately after the attack I saw a lot of things on social media about people who said they were “mad at humanity,” or were just “losing faith in humanity.”
Despite the vile nature of the bombing, acts of random violence are no reason to lose faith in humanity. In fact, the outpouring of love that I saw made me gain more faith in humanity.
The world we live in can be very difficult and full of challenges. Every day in the news, we see images of violence, hate, oppression and other things that can lead us to an apathetic and negative view of humankind. However, the media often does not report to good that humanity is capable of. There were many reports last week of people running toward the explosions after they happened to see what they could do to help. Every day, doctors work tirelessly to combat disease. Churches and other faith communities help families make ends meet.
I believe the random acts of love and care that happen every day throughout the world have tremendous power over the acts of hate. It is just that we as humans sometimes focus on the bad things that people do, and forget to remember the good things.
Humans are the ones who kill each other. We attempt to annihilate others of our kind because they look different, or believe different things than we do. We enslave each other and cheat each other. We create weapons that are capable of destroying our entire planet.
However, in this immense capability to destroy, I believe we also have an equal capability to love and create. Let us not forget that we are the ones who made it through the ice age. We are the ones who made mighty ships and learned celestial navigation to find a new world. We are the ones who cured polio and eradicated other diseases. We are the ones who dreamed of the heavens and built a machine to take us there. We set foot on another world in the name of all mankind and have dreams to reach even further.
We have the capability to end war, end disease and reach for our full potential. I have faith that we can continue to make the world a better place to live in. I have faith in us. Do you?
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