Worth Fighting For

It's only been a few hours, and my Facebook feed is blowing up with news of the tragedy in Boston today. It's horrific, disheartening, and downright scary -- as one of my friends posted, "seriously, wtf is wrong with people??" What kind of a world do we live in where people choose the Boston Marathon - a positive, triumphant event and turn it into a target for death and destruction? As time goes on, and as I get older, I realize the less I know and understand. I echo the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi, "I know that [God] loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things."

When tragedies like the one in Boston occur, it makes me want to crawl into bed and hide under the covers. Or find a cave somewhere. Or maybe if I push past the clothes in my overstuffed closet, I'll come out the other side into a magical land where everything is ok. But that's the thing about this journey that we're on called life - there's only one way to do it, and that's "all in." Sure, we can disengage or withdraw as much as we can, but as much as we try to avoid them, bad things happen - and are going to happen. It's just the nature of the beast. With this fact in mind, it can be easy to sink in despair, or to hide under the aforementioned covers....it's a scary world, after all. But I can't help but think of Samwise's speech from the end of "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" --

Near the end of the movie, after many battles, a world-weary and battle-fatigued Frodo is having a hard time seeing how their journey can possibly end well, and he tells his friend Sam that he just can't do it anymore. His friend responds --

Sam: I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo...and it's worth fighting for.

Despite the tragedies in this world, I believe that there is still some good in the world - a lot of it, actually. I see it in the people around me each day.

My heart and prayers are with the people and city of Boston today, and also with those who have close ties to Boston. And my heart and prayers go out to everyone else in the world -- because after all, we are all connected merely because we're all human beings together on this planet, and this affects us all. And if you feel like hiding out in your bed for a while, I echo what Sam said - keep going, keep holding on, and keep being the good that is worth fighting for in this world.