When you find out a bomb blast wasn’t actually in your city and your response is ‘thank god’

as i was driving to work this morning, bavidra texted: you all good? just saw the news.

trying not to panic, i asked him what happened. and waited — a painfully long 30 seconds — until he responded: Ah, it was in Peshawar.

and my reply was almost*: thank god.

*almost, not because it wasn’t the first thing that i felt (it was). but almost because once my mind caught up, i realized this was the wrong feeling to have.

wrong… because is it ever right to thank god when people tragically die? does god really have anything to do with this?

wrong… because is someone who lives in peshawar any different than someone who lives in lahore?

theoretically/rationally, i know that they are the same… but why is my immediate reaction/feeling that they are different?

and what does it say about me (society?) if I am not able to align my feelings with what is right and rational. and just and dignified and humane.

just an hour before reading bavidra’s text, i read this line from Viktor Frankl: Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

perhaps this line was meant for me (us) today.

perhaps i (we) have a lot of growing still.