The Bombs of Our Own Making

I think on what happened in Boston and want to ask who does that to children?  Who does that to anybody?

But the truth is we all do, all the time.  All the time we plant bombs, with little regard to the fallout, to who will be injured.

Think not?  Consider your own behaviors just this month.  This month, have you spoken an unkind word about one person to another?  Whether it is true is beside the point.  Have you taken a thought for how your words will affect the other person’s judgment and interactions with the one you spoke about?  Have you considered how your words, whether true or not, will affect the one about whom you spoke?

I confess I have spoken such words and I have not given them such thought.  I have not considered how those words will shape how others see the person spoken of.  I have not considered the damage done.

That’s the problem with bombs, even word bombs.  We don’t know who will be there when the blast goes off.  We don’t know the extent of the carnage we will leave behind.  We do know there will be carnage – after all, we planted the bomb.

And so this week, while I mourn the dead and wounded in Boston, I am rededicated to searching out and defusing the bombs of my own making, for I too am a bombmaker.

How about you?