I'll get around to the subject of whether or not I think race directors and participants should race in Pacific Grove, The Mighty Hamptons, and other races this weekend. Readers must first, however, indulge my circuitous route in getting to the point (which is my custom).

I'm fortunate because I have a forum in which to work out my thoughts in writing. There's no better way for me to process the events of the past few days. The phoenix that is beginning to rise from these ashes––and it is my own personal resurrection I'm talking about––is not what I'd expect to see. By temperament I should be foaming with revenge. By nature I should have a scimitar in my teeth and grenades strapped to my chest. But that is not what wells up in me. Neither, if I am honest with myself and my readers, is grief overwhelming all other emotions. Rather it is a stronger, clearer picture of what is important to me about this place in which I live––this idea that hovers over a great continent.

Yesterday I wrote about patriotism. It is easy to confuse this with nationalism. These two words may be synonymous in other parts of the world. For Americans they're opposites. Nationalism means that a group of people who look alike, or think alike, or who are of the same religion, decide to get together and form a politically distinct entity. That's what's been going on in the Balkans for the past few years, and in certain Islamic states.

In America we celebrate the converse. We're a disparate society and we revel in it (well, not always; sometimes we fall off the wagon). When we're at our best, we honor neither a particular race, nor a religion, nor a physical place. In fact, we abhor the honoring of any race or religion or political affiliation if it's to the exclusion of others.

As for geography, Americans find it hard to comprehend the life-and-death struggle between two peoples for a few acres of land on which sits both a mosque and (underneath) a temple. That is because America is not a rock, or an island, or even a continent. America is an idea. It is the idea we cherish.

And what is the idea? I asked a friend of mine, a celebrated Old Testament scholar and educator, to distill the Old Testament into its simplest common denominator. "You can reduce it all to the twin concepts of Justice and Mercy," he said. Likewise in America: If you boil down those American Scriptures, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you get, I believe, the twin concepts of Equality and Tolerance. Hearing these two ideas verbalized––Equality and Tolerance––either makes your heart sing or your blood boil. As for those who have the latter reaction, we've recently seen what such rage drives men to do.

Then there are the rest of us. Equality and Tolerance. That's the phoenix that is rising in me––that idea––our grand experiment in government that is the backbone of this country.

Tolerance requires that you do what you think is best, and we'll honor your decision. If you as a race director think you ought to stage your race, stage it. If you feel you ought to call it off, we'll honor your decision. If you're a participant, race or don't—the choice is yours, and there is no dishonor in either option.

Mostly what tolerance requires is for all of us to allow you to do what you think is best and right, and to allow it without judgment or reprisal. We all have struggled this week, wondering what our appropriate response should be to events of two days ago. A businessman confessed to me today that he "felt guilty making a sales call to a retail store." I replied that the retail store owner probably felt guilty opening up his doors for business today. But both obviously felt that on balance it was best to carry on, for what is the alternative?

Race, or be still. The choice is yours, and let there be no guilt or feelings of dishonor. Most of all, let there be no recriminations. None of us drove an airplane into a building, and this is not a time for us to devour each other over trivial and personal decisions.