We Love Paris.

I was going to write about habits this week but it suddenly seemed so trivial — in light of what Paris is going through.

What causes people to hurt others at random in this way? We may never know. Is it our environment and the things we have or don’t have, is it our participation in society and whether or not we feel we belong, or is it our temperament? All of these things play a role in the decisions we make — whether they be good ones or bad.

What I do know is that when we allow our emotions to latch onto our consciousness and remain there, we are at risk. Emotions are like the tide — they (are supposed to) ebb and flow, never idling, just appearing long enough to make their presence known.

But if you hold onto the need for vengeance, and conjure up in your mind how to get ‘justice’, and relive the plan over and over, you have allowed negative emotions to stick to you like a tick sucking blood from its host.

And yes, it’s just as ugly.

I was so impressed by a new young widower who lost his wife in the Bataclan during the Paris Attacks that I had to add his powerful tribute to her here.

His grace and depth of understanding despite his grief is something we can all strive for.

For fear and hatred are what terrorists dream of. So let’s respond as did Antoine Leiris, with a refusal to be bound by fear due to senseless acts of violence.

Madrid, London, Boston, New York, Paris… As little eight-year-old Martin Richard, who was killed in the bombings at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013 and who drew his sign prior to his death, reminds us:

His Mom, Jane posted this for Paris.

Let’s all remember:

 

“Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding” Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” Mahatma Gandhi