When I consider how my light is spent, in this dark world and wide . . .They also serve who sit and watch TV? (apologies to John Milton)

I watch the news media coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing because I feel helpless. The two or three hours of coverage I have  seen since yesterday afternoon have been a regurgitation of the same fifteen minutes worth of information over and over and over again, despite the sincere efforts of the reporters, commentators and experts.   Very little new. Nothing changes. Same 45 seconds of video running in an endless loop. And yet, as hard as it is to watch,  it is difficult not to.  I want to do something.  But nothing will undo the damage. Three lives will not be restored.  Severed limbs will not re-grow.  Innocence lost will never be found again.

So I sit and watch TV.

The stream of details continues. I am now even more afraid of pressure cookers than I was as a child when I would hear about the horrors of a pressure cooker exploding in some grandma's kitchen when she was doing her summer canning of garden vegetables.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with watching the coverage.  Ignorance is never a good thing, despite what you may have heard.

But, watching is not a substitute for doing.  Fans are great at a football game, but there is no game unless the players show up and kick it off.  It is easy for us fans to become absorbed by the game.  We learn all the players and coaches, the plays, the defenses, the stats. We shout advice to the coaches. We yell at running backs, telling them to run.  You know we do.  We scream at defenses telling them to "get him, get him . . ."  We are Sabanesque with our insights into the game.. Our presence and opinions are critical.    After a while, watching seems like doing.

But it is not.

But what can I do about the Boston Marathon bombing?

Nothing.  It is done.  I cannot change the past.

The future, on the other hand, is a different matter.  I have no choice. Everything I do changes the future, for good or bad. So why not choose good?.

There has been a lot of public discourse lately about how to stop the violence that plagues our country.  We talk about new laws and established personal liberties.  Practical discussions to address these horrible acts of violence are good and necessary.  And hopefully they will result in some helpful public policy.

But even in that, I am still a spectator.   Laws in themselves change no one. They are at best a safety net, a minimum standard for civility and survival.  If we depend completely on the laws of the government to address the problem, I am afraid we have rendered too much unto Caesar and merely established another guide for knowing just how bad we can behave and still stay out of legal trouble. 

 The most important question remains, since it is too late to do anything about the Boston Marathon bombing . . .

What can I do to make things better?

Sometimes I am fooled.  I become afraid because of the darkness that seems to be growing around me. I grow weak and paralyzed for fear of what I cannot see. It is easier to sit down and watch TV or check facebook and watch the action from the safe distance of the shadowy courtyard.

But I had physics teachers and Sunday School teachers and an itinerant rabbi  who taught me the truth about darkness and light.

Darkness has no power.  Darkness is simply the absence of light.  It has no energy in and of itself.

But until the light is carried into the darkness, nothing will change.  

But when it is, everything will change.

Light is a powerful, present energy.

Light will overcome the darkness.  Love will cast out fear.

And I think that has something to do with the answer . . .

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