I WANTED TO WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE!

I wanted to write about going to see my adult son run in the Beach to Beacon race in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.  It's a real deal race.  Top international runners, beautiful road to run, lovely community that supports every runner from fleet to not so. Eight thousand runners in a race that is well organized, friendly and civil. Somehow my husband and I, daughter, and granddaughter managed to not see a glimpse of our guy racing. Nothing. The funny story was about how we managed to make up stories about what had happened. It's so hard to tolerate "not knowing".

BUT, I have just finished reading a book called The Good Spy by Kai -----.
It's basically about the Middle East and the bombing of the Beirut, Lebanon
American Embassy in 1983. It gives tons of background to the devastating Israel/Palestine bloody cudgeling of one another. It got graphic about the aftermath of the bombing and suddenly I was first angry, then sad, then discouraged, and lastly defeated.

Now it is easy to get into staunch positions on this topic. Passions and religious rights are ancient and beyond strong into nuts. And we can tsk tsk about the crazy Middle East.

BUT then, I think about a very local issue.  A successful, much loved local supermarket chain is involved in a family feud that is literally killing their business and all they have created as a family, They have never been able to make a collaborative decision about anything. The upshot is their employees are boycotting their own stores in favor of an ousted leader. The chain has lost millions of dollars.  A competitor has gained a windfall from hate.

Maybe I am writing about the Beach to Beacon race after all.
As families, as communities, as nations, we can't afford this kind of entrenched 
hate. Hate that can't respond to good, that has no "give" in it, that is blind, self defeating and contaminating of those around it.  

What do I do? I try to manage my own sense of outrage that could disintegrate to hate.  I try to keep enlarging my lens about what it means to care about the "whole".  I wrestle my strong opinions into reasonableness.
I keep my eyes open to my own ability to hate.  

The Beach to Beacon race was indeed a beacon of what its like to experience
support for what is good in being part of a group, community, nation. I'm hanging on to that.