A Pastoral Psychologist's Reflection on the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing Tragedy

First and foremost, my prayer and thoughts go out to those who have been victimized and affected by the horrific tragedy at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. 

The trauma is still fresh.  Many are still in the state of shock.  It is difficult to make sense out of this.

It makes us feel surreal. To begin with, it “shouldn’t” happen – especially to innocent people like runners and spectators for the most prestigious marathon race in the United States.  When something that “shouldn’t” happen, actually happens, our immediate reactions comes with shock and disbelief. 

Depending on the proximities to the tragedy, personalities and so forth, each of us show different psychological and somatic responses over some time. 

Some “religious” people are quick to insert their beliefs and doctrines to “comfort” those who have been affected, often invoking the name of God.  They also tend to “sell” their beliefs as “the” way of making sense out of what makes no sense.  

There is a clear danger in this kind of proselytization – taking advantage of someone’s tragedy, because this kind of circumstance makes it easier to impose the venom of hate – hate toward offenders and whoever seem to be offenders.  This is particularly the case where there is anger as a reaction to a tragedy.  Anger and violence go hand in hand. 

 

Of course, whoever the evil-doer perpetrated this tragic offense must be brought to the full light of justice and bear the consequences of their own actions. It goes without saying that the very evil behind this must be thoroughly confronted and defeated.  There is no question about this. 

Defeating the very evil in the offense is a tricky thing as we tend to think of punishing whoever perpetrated.  But, there is something more important than punishing bad guys. 

That being said, as a psychotherapist and pastoral minister, my utmost concern is the condition of those who have been affected and disturbed by this tragedy….those whose lives have changed forever because of this.  The healing and the new growth of those whose lives have been shattered is more important than anything else. 

Say, even though whoever committed this horrible terrorist offense is executed, it may not deter evil-doers from causing more tragedies.  It’s like a fact that we cannot completely exterminate all the rats in Boston or any big city of America – though pest control is essential for public and individual health.  

As we know what is important for preventing from contracting diseases, caused by rats and roaches, is leaving no food unattended.  This is more important than pest-control. 

Likewise, what is most important for us is to cultivate the resilient human spirit in each of us – individually and collectively.  

Though nothing may completely prevent evil from attacking us again, the resilient human spirit can make our faith in humanity impervious to destructive devil’s forces, including terrorism.  

Though the loss of lives and unfolding pain from the bombing in Boston continue to shake us, while traumatic wounds from the Sandy Brook Elementary School massacre shooting are still fresh, the resilience of the human spirit has been keeping our faith in humanity unbroken.  This means that we are not letting the devil win, whether it comes with a form of terrorism or whatever else.  The perpetrator’s ultimate mission is to destroy humanity – the human heart – the human faith, and eventually to extinguish the human spirit irreversibly. 

You may have notice that I am not bringing up God today, so far,- though I have written about the Gospel , God, Jesus and theological stuff in my blog and elsewhere as a Christian.  I have seen flurries of posts with heavily religious tones in response to this tragedy. 

I am a bit down-playing with so-called “God language” today  - not because I have lost my faith in God. But, rather, I just want to focus on the human spirit, which some “Christians” tend to antagonize against God or the Holy Spirit.  In fact, if you are true Christian, you know that the true human spirit, which is resilient to devil’s attack, never loses faith in humanity, always compassionate, mirrors the Holy Spirit. 

Though there are different methods of studying theology, the way I approached the  Roman Catholic theology at Loyola University Chicago is anthropocentric – anthropocentric theology. It means that my way of studying theology always takes place in the human context.  

Why anthropocentric theology? To answer this question, I refer to the creation narratives in Genesis 1, especially Genesis 1:27.  That is why God chose to make Godself visible and tangible through a human shape – through impregnating Mary. That is why we, the humans, are a mirror image of God – imago Dei.

As a believer, I simply believe this. But, I am mindful that not everyone – though I personally believe in imago Dei in every human being – necessarily share this belief. I am also aware that those who do not share my belief are alarmed of propensity of some “Christians” taking advantage of this kind of situation to wedge in their own beliefs to those who are shattered and confused.  

Given these, I just speak in a plane human language mostly.  By staying on the side of the humanity’s inherent goodness, speaking in a plane human terms also means making a good theological reflection. 

So, for those who believe in God, we can recognize the divine presence even when a horrible tragedy like this happens.  We can discern the divine presence even more actively in human responses to tragedies.

To me, the very kind of human response that assures the active divine presence in the face of such tragedies is what Viktor Frankl calls “tragic optimism”.  But, this is not exactly the kind of optimism Martin Seligman argues.  While Frankl believes that tragic optimism in a more existential term, Seligman conceptualize optimism more in a cognitive perspective as it can be learned (as to apply Albert Bandura’s social learning theology to understand optimism). 

Seligman in his “Authentic Happiness” indicates that three elements: positive emotions, positive personality traits, and positive institutions, are necessary for optimism.  But, amidst of such a shocking and traumatizing tragedy like the one at the Boston Marathon, Seligman’s concept seems rather foreign.  Even you happen to have a positive personality disposition, the shock from the trauma can cloud your inherent optimistic personality – at least for a while.  Maybe you can try to still feel positive. Or, perhaps you could pretend as if you were feeling optimistic.  Having an optimistic institution, when so many losses and destructions have occurred, is extremely difficult.

When optimism seems to be the last thing to come up with, in traumatizing tragedies like this, what is more appealing is Viktor Frankl’s concept of tragic optimism.  Frankl’s concept of optimism is rather existential. It means that the kind of optimism Frankl argues for is rather inherent to us as humans.  If you subscribe to anthropocentric theology, as I do, then, you can understand that this kind of optimism is a form of grace from God, a gift that God has bestowed.  So, a critical question is how we discern this tragic optimism that Frankl conceptualized (and Paul Wong, a Canadian psychologist, has further elaborated on) in response to our own tragic and traumatic experiences. 

In order to think more strategically of the Frankl’s concept of tragic optimism to help us cope with this difficult time of tragic pain, we need to better understand what tragic optimism is about.

Basically, tragic optimism is a powerful  inoculating antidote to what Frankl calls “tragic triad”: pain, guilt and death, which are rather natural human response to tragedies that shakes humanity and shatters our hearts, leaving us in deep grief and doubt of humanity.  If there were no “tragic optimism” to counter the “tragic triad”, then,  traumatizing tragedies like the one at the Boston Marathon, could have destroy our faith in humanity – human hope completely.  It means that whoever perpetrated this offense could have accomplished devil’s mission to destroy humanity because it can also means to cut believers from God by completely sinking them into the abyss of irrecoverable despair.  But, though struggling, we did not give our way to devil. 

Look how many Boston Marathon runners, who have been affected, are vowing to run again.  Look how many staunch supporters of the Marathon are determined to support again.  Whether they believe in God or not, they know inherently that letting fear of being attacked dictate and giving up the Marathon by giving their way to devil, means defeat.  They are demonstrating the resilient human spirit that does not allow devil to win us.  

For those who are with Christian faith, this triumphant resilience in the human spirit certainly mirrors the spirit of the resurrection of Christ.  As the Christian find the ultimate source of hope in the Christ’s resurrection, the victory over death, we, the humans with this resilient spirit, find our source of hope in this triumphant human spirit. And, it sure is rising as more and more runners and supporters are vowing to continue the Marathon. 

Even those who have been shattered enough to give up on the Marathon out of fear are, again, gravitated back to running and supporting a marathon as they are touched by the resilience in the human spirit rising among those who are determined to continue on with the Marathon. 

This is what the transformative and transcendental tragic optimism is about. And, this is a very powerful optimism that rises from tragedies, lifting all heavy hearts up gradually. 

Originally, the term “tragic optimism” was coined by Friedrich Nietzsche, in terms of the human will to power, as opposed to Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimistic view on the world, which is bruised with tragedies like the one we are experiencing now.  Nietzsche came up with “tragic optimism” by studying Greek Tragedy, around 5  B. C., such as Aeschylus. 

The ancient Greek thought that life was really a struggle with tragedies.  It echoes Buddhist’s teaching of life as suffering.  As Buddhists must have felt that suffering is inescapable, so did the ancient Greeks.  This realization among the ancient Greeks led to development of the literal, artistic and theatrical works of Greek Tragedy.  Thus, Greek Tragedy, as we know it, is outcomes of the ancient Greek’s creative and artistic coping with their tragic reality of life.  Thus, tragic optimism can be attained by our creative and artistic response to our tragic experiences. This makes sense to think why there is an art therapy, music therapy, play therapy and dance therapy as extended forms of psychotherapy.  In this creative process to cope, the ancient Greeks put Dionysus and Apollo as their antidote to succumbing into a trap of despair, what Frankl calls “tragic triad”.  Dionysus represents the flowing life (with an image of wine flowing) while Apollo symbolizes powerful beauty.  In this, the ancient Greeks discerned the presence of the strong and beautiful divine presence amidst the tragic reality. 

 

After more than 2,000 years later, tragedies continue on. Even the resurrection of Christ, devil continues to hijack some human hearts to cause such atrocious acts against innocent people, like the bombing at the Marathon.  However, the human spirit has evolved even more resilient and stronger every time we have respond to human tragedies meaningfully with “tragic optimism”. 

In closing, I want to share words of Jeff Edmonds, “A Bomb is the Opposite of a Marathon” from his blog, “The Logic of Long Distance : Connecting Running and Philosophy“.

“Runners are more than familiar with pain. It's our bread and butter. We love to hurt. We believe in endurance, in suffering, in brutal and soul-withering work.

But ours is not a violent sport.

See, there's a difference between pain and violence. Violence violates. You see it so clearly in what happened today. The morning showed pain as triumph and pain as failure. The suffering carved out on the face of Dulce Felix (what a sweet name) as her legs no longer worked, as her glory faded into defeat, as the marathon gods smote her for believing too much, for wanting too much, was noble suffering. The suffering of loss, but sensible loss, human loss. This sort of loss was not a violation because all it risked was victory -- such a small thing in the grand scheme. Sweet happiness led the race, and then faded. Such is life. It requires endurance.

With Jeptoo we saw strength overcoming pain. We saw her, after 24 miles of hard running, run harder. We saw the glory of a healthy body at the peak of its talent, at the peak of its performance. We saw what can be, sometimes, in rare moments: a life almost without limits. A picture of fragile triumph.

The Boston Marathon is, in many ways, a celebration of human effort. We come together on Patriots Day to remind ourselves of the joy and pain of work and effort. Everyone who has taken the marathon seriously knows that to make your peace with the marathon means learning to love the grind over the result, the pain over the triumph, and the hard push over the finishing time. Marathoners embrace these things because in a race so long, there are few perfect races. Doing well is always just that: doing well. We never do our best, but we do enough. That's what endurance means.

That would have been lesson enough. But when two blasts rung out around 2pm, running experienced violence. We were violated. Those two blasts introduced pain without effort. Suffering beyond endurance. A bomb is quick, thoughtless, grotesque, impatient, unfeeling. It's all externality, no internality. All destruction, no training. All noise, no silence. All damage, no strength. A bomb is the opposite of a marathon.

We opt for violence when we can no longer endure the difficulty of living with others, the difficulty of recognizing our limits, the difficulty of being vulnerable ceaselessly to pain. To endure is to keep going in spite of those limits and the pain of life. To endure is to expose ourself to the world, to others, to the ravages of time and effort. To endure is to risk loving, to risk being loved. A marathon doesn't always have to symbolize this. Sometimes it is just a race that runners run. But this year it is more -- it is a symbol of endurance.

A bomb is the opposite of a marathon.

Tomorrow, despite the bombs, we will be running. We will be afraid, but we will not fight. Or rather, we will fight by not fighting, by choosing flight, we runners, we believers in endurance.”

http://www.logicoflongdistance.com/

Instead of Dionysus’ wine flowing, we see the strong flow of the resilient human spirit. Rather than the beauty of Apollo, we see the beauty of the radiating human spirit.

Keeping on marathons means fighting against violence and any other forms of devil that can bring tragedies.  The endurance that marathons demand and symbolize also reflects the resilience of the triumphant human spirit.  It’s great to be human, embodying this resilient spirit.  Let the resilient human spirit keep flowing, especially during the time like this.   This is what Frankl and Nietzsche calls “tragic optimism” is about. This is how we keep our faith and hope in humanity. And, for those who believe in God, this way, we know God is not absent….we are not abandoned in tragedies.