Good People Are Out There


I’ve been trying not to think about Boston. I’ve run a few marathons. I remember when the Chicago Marathon felt like a country race. Imagine—friends and family actually finding you at the finish line! Now with over 45,000 running it—well, good luck meeting up. But of course back then there weren’t the chips or ways to track using cell phones.

So I’ve been diverting my attention to other news.

Like this piece about late authors homes—now Starbucks!

Or this article about Flannery O’Connor—as if we needed another reason to love her.

Oddly enough I was just thinking about her story, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", this morning while scrambling eggs. Actually I think I finally got the story.

It is the story of convicts on the loose hiding out in the backwoods of Georgia and how a family who had stumbled off the beaten path of their vacation came across the escapees. It doesn’t end well. But leaves us with a lesson—that some of us, no matter our good intentions, will fail. Our only salvation requires dire measures. We will choose rightly if there is a gun pressed to our heads.

Let’s just say I work with some people who fit that description. Nice, well-meaning, mostly. But sometimes they like to skip corners and get by with only doing the minimum. I don’t always handle things very well. I might need some classes in anger management.

Telling them how stupid they are never seems to work.

Thankfully cooler heads prevail and I don’t ever get around to telling them what I think of them. Also I came to realize last night that part of the frustration I’m feeling is tied to what happened in Boston.

Never once in all the years of running or running around on race day at the Chicago Marathon did I think: Watch out for bombs!

Now it’s there and I won’t be able to stop thinking about it.

I’m glad to get this off my chest. A good man is hard to find—unless brokered by fate—they discover within themselves compassion and selflessness otherwise hidden away.

Listen now to Flannery O’Connor read A Good Man is Hard To Find.

Reports of Marathon Runners that crossed finish line and continued to run to Mass General Hospital to give blood to victims #PrayforBoston

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