On the sunny afternoon of April 15th the United States changed, but only for a moment. On a politically-charged expanse, flagpoles adorned with adversarial messages of ignorance and derisiveness quietly were placed on the floor. Neighbors that had only moments before been talking down to one another stood with hands on shoulders and looked upon each other with understanding eyes. For a moment the people of this nation did not see themselves as divided people all vying for control, but became a part of a Union devoted to the empowerment of the citizen. And together we wept as a nation. But it was only a moment.
In the midst of the silence, someone picked up their flag and ferociously started pointing a finger away from him. He waved his banner high, the bright colors shone in stark contrast from the blue of the sky, still tainted by the smoke. Soon another found their banner and rushed to the defense of the accused individual, shouting even more harshly than the first. Fingers indicated a number of directs, flying from the bomb sites to other flags to innocent victims wondering why this had happened to them. Almost as quickly as it began, that moment ended.
There is no denying that the Boston marathon bombings had a huge impact on the United States, if not the world. Once again, the U.S. found itself as the victim of another act of terrorism. Thankfully, this time around, the loss of life was relatively low, though many, many were affected by the blasts, by injuries physical and psychological. But this blog is not dealing with those directly affected by the bombings. I wanted to talk about those who only knew what happened by the daily news.
You see, the bombing only silenced the petty political wars of man for a moment before becoming another weapon for those wars. It was barely the next day when I saw on my Facebook feed a picture of the bombing with the message of someone's political aspirations. It disgusted me to see the pain of hundreds, or even thousands, used as some point for someone's argument. I'm not saying that we should not think in the aftermath of a horrible event, but we should not use these events as some sort of false fuel for our personal crusades. We have become so accustomed to pitting ourselves against an antagonistic world that we no longer can view anything but our own as reasonable.
That is why I mourn for that brief moment that we mourned as a nation. For that brief moment when we all knew who the enemy was. That brief moment when we stood arm-in-arm as the people, determined to form a more perfect union.
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