Communal Tragedy

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As individuals, we all know pain and loss. It is the rare person who escapes sorrow. But when one of us hurts, others are there to offer comfort. Communal tragedy is different. When something bad happens to us as a community—whether that is a school, a town, a people, or a country—we struggle to figure out how to tend to our own wounds while taking care of each other. Drawing on compassion, empathy, justice, and love, we can bring out the best in each other, and perhaps, find a theology of hope in the midst of despair.

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“Can we be mirrors of each others’ light?”
“the shared livestream of celebrated death, / night and day of shattered glass.”
“I wish I could make enough soup to nourish the broken, injured, hurting, praying, people of the world.”
“I have lived enough to know there / are probably embers glowing…”
“As we inhabit one Earth, we are one human family…”
“A thousand funerals in / one day    a shortage of diggers / an excess of graves.”
“I will breathe through tears. / I will swallow pride. / I will bite my tongue. I will offer love…”
“What about the kids in war, my nieces ask? / They hide, the eldest says.”
“Once upon the time / last weekend, something changed the composition of my body, / my memories, / and the way that I breathe.”
“I find peace in the world /not in running away from it.”

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