Our lives are governed by stories. We have our personal ones, our family lore, the stories of our nations, and the stories of the world as a whole. These tales can tell us much about who we are as individuals, and if we can listen carefully we can use the narrative to create change for the better.

Unfortunately the people of the United States and the world are confronted with yet another tragic story, one which is all too familiar and laced with unimaginable pain and suffering. These events leave nations struggling to come to grips with the new reality left in their wake and cause us to wonder, why?

Senseless tragedies such as the Boston Marathon bombing and the school shooting in Connecticut stop us in our tracks. They leave us groundless and terrified in not only the present moment, but also in what they mean for our collective futures. They bring us to a place of collective grief and leave us wondering what we can do to help. Tales of average people going above and beyond to help strangers in the midst of these tragedies are the threads that hold us together. They form our story of human connection. If we can let these events touch our hearts, thereby fueling our compassion and strengthening the human bond, then the losses are not totally in vain.

Through reflection we must also search our national stories for answers.  Home of the brave, the true north, strong, and free... these are the words we have all grown up reciting; words which we learned from our ancestors who helped build our nations. But how does reality stack up to those ideals, and what were those ideals actually rooted in?

We are taught from an early age that everyone has the chance to make it in the developed world, that we all have a chance at our own slice of the  national dream, but is this really the case? We speak of equality, opportunity, and compassion for our fellow man... but do our lives reflect this dream?

The cynic might say, 'not a chance'. Turn on any news channel, watch a reality TV show, or strike up a political discussion; any of these demonstrate clearly that the real story we are living is one of division and competition. We have national campaigns against bullying, yet any child can see that many adults use threats and intimidation every day to get what they want.

We are taught to see those who do not fit our story as the unreal other. We uphold societal norms which implicitly keep them out of our story, through rationalizations of fear such as national security concerns.

It is high time to start asking ourselves which parts of our national stories are leaving some in our world so marginalized that they resort to unspeakable acts of violence in order to convey their message and make their presence known. Something clearly is not working. We need to step back and examine the entire story and how it is being told and retold every day.  Who does the narrative really serve? Does it help the entire nation, or does it only benefit those who stand to profit from it? How can we be more open to reworking the story so that our value systems reflect a more equitable division of the national dream?

All those who suffer losses as a result of such tragedies need our compassion and love. But maybe they also need us to start to question the story a bit, even if it's just enough to start a more meaningful dialogue -- one that provides the impetus for change. The kind of real change that is necessary to prevent these tragedies from occurring again.