Boston bruised . . . but not broken

As the days pass since Monday's war zone on Boylston Street, the emotions I sense around me seem to have moved from rage to a deep sadness. Before the attacks, whenever I rode the T, I was amazed at how 85% of the passengers communed with their handheld electronic devices, either texting, tweeting, or playing games, or sometimes talking out loud to someone on the other end of their cell. Strangers sat side by side lost in their little screens. Sounds around them were muffled by whatever chosen sounds filled their individual ear buds.

Yesterday, however, and today I noticed that more people were talking to each other and that the mesmerized postures of eyes glued to electronica was greatly reduced. There was a palpable difference as each of us tried to absorb and make some sense out of the events near the finish line on April 15. This was not something we wanted to tune out, nor could we, and so we reached out to each other in real time, face to face, in conversation.

The interfaith service today challenged Boston's capacity to reawaken to each other, to move beyond the automatic default of our addictions to our electronic devices that can keep us living in an insular, separated way. Hopefully, the events of April 15, together with the stirring speeches we heard this morning have awakened us from the dreamscape of our own inertia of habitual movement away from community, away from intimacy.

 

 

As the "crime scene" shrinks the sidewalks begin to open up once again.