Boots and Blessings

There have been different theories as to why the tragedy in West, TX, has not engendered the same attention as did the tragedy in Boston, MA this week. Some say it's because one was an attack, the other an industrial accident. Others say it's because one was in a large city, the other in a small rural town. I think it was something far more basic: we are visual people, and we viscerally connect with pictures of other people. Quick, think of a picture of the Boston marathon bombing. The man with half a leg missing, being pushed in a wheelchair? The 78 year old runner knocked to the ground? The police, running toward the explosion? Now, think of a picture of the West, TX explosion. The fireball? The cloud? The stripped-out apartments? The lack of faces defining the explosion are, actually, perhaps the saddest part. Because when the fertilizer plant exploded, homes nearby were leveled. We simply don't know how many people died. We can count the bodies that are found.

It was the nails that broke me. I had already cried. Cried when I watched the reports of the bombings at the Boston Marathon. Then dried the tears, and began working fast, earnestly, with Meg , Lynn , Lara , and Tim to put together a prayer service so that Monday night, we would all have an online place to gather, to be in religious community. Bless you, musicians, for your songs. Bless you, the community that showed up, to bare our pain together. Bare. Not bear, as Ric Masten corrected . Tuesday came, and more details. Pressure cookers, filled with shards of metal, ball bearings, nails. Those nails pierced my grief, taking me to that place of just total incomprehension. What did it feel like, holding those nails in your hand? Did you touch them, or just open the cardboard box and drop them in? Perhaps you thought if you didn't touch them, they would leave no blood on your hands? But you chose them. You chose them, because you didn't just want attention, you wan