Yesterday I held a day off, after my Sunday presentation day. My talk went well and was much appreciated by my audience of twelve, with JK as unexpected guest. Success or not, such a presentation does take more out off me than it used too, when I was still working as an instructor.

I had brought macaroons from across the street, twelve! Good guess, No? We also sang Happy Birthday for Jack, albeit a day early, but he listened any way :). He also explained that our coffee laid some of the grounds for today’s presentation.

And I want to had here, that it was Jack’s interest and encouragements that convinced me that I was working on something of value and importance. So, thank you Jack and I will have to let you know in person.

Yesterday, Sunday’s the audio files were transferred to my computer and the two handouts were marked up as well. In the morning I joined my former Sait department colleagues for the monthly breakfast. That is always a good gathering, but I do not go to all of them. That breakfast there, makes me realise that the Blackfoot is expensive for what they serve for lunch.

For later this week, the plan is Thursday coffee with John and Friday lunch with Herman. I also need to do some housekeeping which is slowly but surely, turning into a gratifying activity, one which gives me satisfaction for having done this for myself! That notion needed a lot of work to come to this state of being a self valuing activity.

I wrote my own meditation titled ‘The Boston Events and Human Experience’ for my presentation last Sunday, and may include it here below. I felt the need for this poem in order to acknowledge the emotional turmoil we had all shared about the week’s events.

The two explosions in Boston were followed a few days later by a earthquake like explosion in the town of West in the US federal state of Texas. The devastation there was immense, with dozens of lives lost, many injuries and a destroyed town due to the local fertiliser plant exploding.

The second disaster dropped out of the news by last Saturday, while last night the Boston explosions were still front and center as news item. It is worthwhile to compare these reactions, because the Texas town of West plant explosion was far more costly in lives lost, injuries sustained and property damaged.

An even more pronounced difference can be observed in the reaction of the authorities. In the Boston case thousands of men and some women were called upon, not to mention the vast deployment of vehicles, other platforms and technologies. Within a few days the perpetrators were identified and then caught, one dead one alive and one charged.

In the Texas explosion case, no one is yet held to account and the application of manpower is regular if that much, with the cause of this devastating explosion still under investigation and responsibility far from assigned.

Now I know that we feel different in our reaction to these two events of explosion. The Boston explosions are a terror event, because there is no relation to the civic event of the run and the two exploding roadside bombs. The fertiliser plant explosion falls in the category of ‘industrial accident’, and we are all familiar with such events, like with the West Ray coalmine disaster in Nova Scotia, about which the late Rita McNeil sang.

The causes of industrial accidents often relate to ignored rules and regulations, which at time reduce the company’s profits. The fact that the fertiliser plant had stored more than thirteen hundred time the oversight trigger limit is not that unexpected, because it is seeding season. The fertiliser in small controlled quantities stimulates growth, but presents a an explosive danger when it gets too hot en masse.

So in one case we know the chain of cause and effect and are familiar with the possible motivating factors that led to the amalgam of actions and omissions preceding the disaster. In the case of the terrorist action, we recognise the ‘roadside bomb’ from a far away war, which now took place on our door step. No understood relationship can be discerned here, but one is, all too fearful, to be made.

Yet, looking at the many globalising processes in our world today, we do know that events and action in one place are starting to grow connections and have consequences elsewhere over time.

There may be a similarity here between today’s terrorist and the young man in a West European village who felt called to become a missionary in far away colonies some time ago. I mean to illustrate here, that causes can call over long distances without apparent connections, but be powerfully felt none the less.

This is not a mechanism that is well understood in our human society. It maybe worth our while to apply the kind of effort that was brought to bear in the case of the two Boston roadside bombs, but then in different ways and arenas, where that effort may be more cost effective.
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