On Another’s Sorrow

One year ago today, most of us listened with shock and disbelief as we heard the news of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. And then came the grief. I remember vividly that once the news sank in I was nearly overwhelmed with this profound sense of sadness. Having just earlier dropped my kids at school and on my way home after running some errands, I had to pull over until I could calm down enough to drive again. Over and over again, I kept thinking that is was so many children. How could this possibly happen?

In the days and weeks to come, similar outpourings of grief and sympathy flooded Newtown from around the country. Funerals were held. Toys and gifts came from all over to try to restore some sense of Christmas to the devastated parents and siblings and friends of the children lost. And lots of volunteers came to offer what help they could. A year later, the residents of Newtown have asked that folks keep a respectful distance and allow them to grieve more privately. I can only imagine how difficult this anniversary is for the families, how painful to remember and relive those moments after hearing the awful news, how difficult to believe it must seem that they have lived with their loss for an entire year.

As those families continue to grieve and hopefully to heal, and as we continue to grieve and hopefully to heal with them, I thought of a poem by William Blake. It describes the difficult but essential nature of empathy, the way in which we feel pain with and for each other. Empathy is challenging because it is not standing back and offering words of sadness or comfort; it is not sympathizing with another at a distance. It is entering into and sharing the hurt or discomfort of another. Empathy is to take on the pain of the other…and in this way connect more profoundly with them.

But after noting how we grieve with and for each other, Blake moves on to confess that God does the same. That each pain, each tear, each disappointment or setback we feel is also felt by God. This seems like the very heart of the Incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas – that God would take on our lot and life fully – and also so important to remember at times of tragedy and on an anniversary like this one.
 

On Another’s Sorrow

Can I see another’s woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another’s grief,
And not seek for kind relief?

Can I see a falling tear,
And not feel my sorrow’s share?
Can a father see his child
Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

Can a mother sit and hear
An infant groan, an infant fear?
No, no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
And can He who smiles on all
Hear the wren with sorrows small,
Hear the small bird’s grief and care,
Hear the woes that infants bear —

And not sit beside the next,
Pouring pity in their breast,
And not sit the cradle near,
Weeping tear on infant’s tear?

And not sit both night and day,
Wiping all our tears away?
Oh no! never can it be!
Never, never can it be!
He doth give his joy to all:
He becomes an infant small,
He becomes a man of woe,
He doth feel the sorrow too.

Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
And thy Maker is not by:
Think not thou canst weep a tear,
And thy Maker is not near.

Oh He gives to us his joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled an gone
He doth sit by us and moan.

William Blake, 1789