We run because it concentrates the sweetness of living. We continue to live to demonstrate that your violence is dead.

I have never understood the use of violence to achieve a goal. I am pro-Irish and pro-Palestinian. I am vehemently anti-violence and I will never understand its use as a tool of leverage. I will never accept collateral damage. Never accept the death of an innocent eight year-old watching the beauty of human spirit and accomplishment. And if that child happened to be in Syria, Somalia, or Afghanistan instead of Boston, USA, I still would not accept it.

I have heard the reports of heroism, compassion, sadness, anger and confusion that is the aftermath of the events at the Boston Marathon. I have heard the defiance and resilience of Bostonians and Americans and I am proud to be a member of their tribe. I stand with their resolve and respect their paths of mourning and healing. And I will pause there…

…because I want to also illuminate all the other acts of courage, splinters of anger, fists raised in defiance, unwavering resolve to carry on, that happens every day around the World. The innocent bystanders caught off by flying shrapnel and maimed because of the inarticulate perpetrators of violent acts. I want the events in Boston to bring us together, all of us. To focus a light on the extreme nature of killing in the name of achieving. Humans have a lock on letting ideology, whether “home grown” or “international”, function as a justification for murder. I think we can do better.

I challenge you to run with that as your energy drink.