Crushing sadness

This morning as I woke up to hear more news accounts of the Virginia Tech shooting, I was simply overwhelmed. I do not know anyone from there, but even just the one survivor story I heard was too much to bear. I can't imagine the terror felt by those students, the faculty and the families involved. It reminds me just a touch of 9/11, I simply cannot take in all the stories. I had to walk away from the news. And then I read this post from Suzanne and the video linked to this one via Danielle, and by the time I got into the shower, it was nothing but tears. It just seems too much all at once.

So while I leaned my head against the shower and just cried for a bit, I thought about Heaven. For as much as I sometimes fear dying and death, I certainly look forward to a time when all we know is joy. I realize we have to know suffering to know peace and joy, but I do think it will be wonderful to make it to Heaven someday and not have to worry about pain and loss anymore.

This poem/prayer is fully copied from Ted Loder's wonderful book Guerrillas of Grace. It sums it up for me today:

Sometimes , Lord,
It just seems to be too much:
too much violence, too much fear;
too much of demands and problems;
too much of broken dreams and broken lives;
too much of war and slums and dying;
too much of greed and squishy fatness
and the sounds of people
devouring each other
and the earth;
too much of stale routines and quarrels,
unpaid bills and dead ends;
too much of words lobbed into explode
and leaving shredded hearts and lacerated souls;
too much of turned-away backs and yellow silence,
red rage and the bitter taste of ashes in my mouth.

Sometimes the very air seems scorched
by threats of rejection and decay
until there is nothing
but to inhale pain
and to exhale confusion.

Too much darkness, Lord.
too much of cruelty
and selfishness,
and indifference.

Too much, Lord,
too much,
too bloody,
bruising,
brain-washing much.

Or is it too little,
too little of compassion,
too little of courage,
of daring,
of persistence,
of sacrifice;
too little of music
and laughter
and celebration?

O God,
make of me some nourishment
for these starved times,
some food
for my brothers and sisters
who are hungry for gladness and hope,
that, by being bread for them,
I may also be fed,
and be full.

So for all these intentions, I offer my most sincere prayers. Days like this are when I realize that is all I have to give.