Overwhelmed by tragedy? This is what you can do right now

Sometimes you hear the news and it rips your heart clear out of your chest. Doesn’t it seem that’s happening a lot lately?

My husband had watched coverage late into the night while I slept peacefully in the next room. Monday morning, his voice was heavy. Every word sank with the weight of sorrow as he told me.

“There was a terrible shooting last night, love. In Las Vegas.” He exhaled an expansive sigh, the kind that gives you away when you look just fine otherwise. “I just have no way to process fifty people killed.”

Who does?

Overwhelmed by tragedy

Who has a space, a category for this horror? Our broken world is reeling with tragedy. We know it happens, but push away the thought until it slams into us and we cannot avoid it. Today, the heaviness sits quietly with the same question. Nearly sixty people now, gone forever? Over 500 wounded?

The death toll keeps climbing, fresh on the heels of so much tragedy. Hurricanes, floods, lives and homes and livelihoods lost. Grief over unjust deaths. Earthquakes and genocide in Myanmar and refugees still fleeing ISIS.

All the while, investigators are searching for clues to what could have caused this Las Vegas nightmare. How do you sift through a murderer’s life to find closure? Bank statements and social media, relationships and pastimes and habits, all are being dredged up in hopes of answering the big question. Why?

The problem is that we can’t really understand the why.

No response could justify such terror. We cannot explain the horrors away for those lost and aching in a sea of trauma and grief, whether after a mass shooting or a catastrophic flood. We may come to some intellectual understanding of motive or science or policy that explains the mechanics of the event.

But there are no answers that will satisfy and soothe shattered hearts.

So we’re left with more questions.

What do we do with this? What do I do?

The sense of frozen helplessness is profound. But these questions, the desire to look for some way to help restore? These we can answer. We can do something.

Instead of staying frozen

In tragedy, let us sit in the ashes with those who mourn.

Let us be cognizant of people whose lives will never, ever be the same.

There are lost loved ones. People who watched their precious friends, kids, or spouses cut down, washed away by floodwaters, crushed in earthquakes.

For some, these traumas will make the evening dark a place of fear. There will be nightmares and flashbacks and moments they forget their loved one is gone, only to be hit by a crushing wave of grief once again.

Our culture is uncomfortable with grief. While most of us would never intend this, after a few weeks and months, we forget the anguish of those dealing with loss.

Instead of expecting people to “get back to normal,” we can make room for their pain by simply being present. This means asking how they’re really doing, mentioning the loss on anniversaries (even monthly anniversaries), or just saying, “I know this must still hurt. I’m still here with you.”

In tragedy, let us simply do something.

There is always a way to extend love, support, and comfort. Perhaps we can give blood or plasma, write letters, send money, or simply open hearts and homes in the ministry of presence. There may be space for action on a larger scale and a fight to prevent history repeating.

It’s helpful to look at what you have available — your talents, your finances, your time — in choosing ways to help. Whether you have a gift for encouraging words, cooking comfort food, or love giving financially, there is always something natural and meaningful for to do.

And no, we cannot fix it all. The point is not to do everything because that’s impossible. But we can all do something.

In tragedy, let us engage our hearts and minds through prayer.

Not only for the victims, survivors, family, and friends. But that our hearts would expand with greater compassion. Compassion — a word that literally means “co-suffering” or “suffering together” — binds our hearts to others.

And yet we’ve become disconnected, rarely entering the ache of another. It’s uncomfortable, counter-intuitive to sit with the pain and be gentle in our responses, so we need the help of the Spirit who knows exactly what each person needs to hear.

A prayer for those who want to respond well when overwhelmed by tragedy

May our capacity for pain on another’s behalf only grow.

May our willingness to sit in the suffering of others

come before our desire for comfort.

Help us hear the pain and questions long before we try to offer answers,

and perhaps lessen our need for answers after all.

As we ask for comfort for those who mourn,

may it come through our own voices, our hands, our arms.

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