I am profoundly tired. Last week was rough, to say the least. This week had been better but closed with my Grandma fracturing her hip and needing surgery (she thankfully has come through it well) and then the tragic world events of yesterday in Paris, Beirut, and elsewhere. Right now, I am sitting here trying to figure out what to say in the children's sermon tomorrow at church.
And I'm just spent.
This is a screwed up world. Of course, it is messed up every day and not just the ones in which tragedy cacophonously blares for all of us to hear. There are millions of quiet tragedies each day: deaths, empty stomachs, broken relationships, and more than we care to think about. Because if we took all of that in each day, I don't know if we could bear it.
Yet this too is a beautiful world and it is a beautiful world every single day. I could see it in the way that people in Paris opened up their homes as havens when the city was seized by fear of the terrorist attacks. And there are millions of quiet beauties each day as well: a hand given to those in need, a shoulder offered when one weeps, and love in all its wondrous forms.
And I don't know how to hold those two things in my hand at the same time. The difference between the two is baffling. On one hand there is hatred which begets hatred; a cycle of violence that has seeped into the blood of us all. And on the other hand there is compassion; a kindness that breaks through barriers of nationality, ethnicity, and faith.
From a theological standpoint, I know (as much as you can know something) why this is the case. We are sinful and fallen beings, but we are also created in the Image of God. So there is capacity for horrendous evil and redemptive good in each of our bones. That makes sense in the abstract, but it is a bewildering thing to behold in reality; especially when it is played out on so large a scale.
It makes me want to do something, anything to hold my hands against the gaping wound. But I feel powerless because there is always going to be another terror attack, another mass shooting, another child hungry, another human being rejected. So I try to snap shut my eyes and remember that there will also be another outpouring of compassion, another meal offered, another person welcomed.
But the cynic in me whispers that those things can only get so far without justice. Compassion is wonderful but as long as we insist these problems are an issue with them and neglect the ways in which we might contribute then this might as well continue ad infinitum.
In the face of helplessness, I try to remember Micah 6:8. I try to remember the simple small things that I can do: to do justice, to love mercy, and walk humbly with God. I cannot control the world around me, but I can try to do those things as best as I can and beg God to drag me along because my best is often not worth much.
Beyond that, I can only offer up a prayer: Kyrie eleison; Lord, have mercy. When tragedies like this hit--whether Paris or Newtown or some unknown corner of the world--that is all I can seem to muster. I pray that God's mercy will flood the streets, that mercy will be a salve to wounded hearts, that mercy will be on the minds of those in power, and that mercy will transform the most evil of us.
It really is not much, but I feel like that is all I can pray. I wish that I could pray it into infinity, because that is how much mercy we need, will need, and have always needed. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.