From My Other Blog

This was originally posted when I found out about the London bombings. Thought I'd repost it here...

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July 08, 2005

This is obvious...or maybe not so obvious to some. Thought I'd post it anyway.

London is in my heart and in my prayers.

Exerpt from "When Tragedy Strikes: Finding Security in a Vulnerable World"

Tragedy: What It Can Teach Us

Most of us would prefer to avoid a tragedy. That's normal. But terror-management specialists argue that a confrontation with tragedy and death has "the potential to be a liberating and growth-enhancing experience." Their conclusions agree with those of the ancient writer of Ecclesiastes. He recognized the value in facing tragedy and death: "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart" (Ecclesiastes. 7:2)


Tragedy, especially one through which we face our own mortality, often forces us to challenge untested beliefs about our purpose and significance in the world. Like no other event in life, it demands that we reevaluate how and why we live the way we do. Like it or not, deeply held convictions are most often strongly forged in the furnace of trauma and overwhelming adversity.


Learning through trauma is especially arduous because it demands much more than seeing reality clearly. It demands admitting and accepting reality at its ugliest. And it's often in the midst of that ugliness that we learn the most crucial lessons that form the foundations for the rest of our lives.