In Moments Such As These (While Paris Is Bleeding)

n Donne: Poems “For whom the bell tolls”

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

john pavlovitz

Paris is bleeding tonight.

We know little more than this with any certainty, and yet this is the only thing we really need to know right now.

It is more than enough to enable us to do what we are most qualified and called to do from where we are in this moment—It is enough for us to bleed too. What we do know is more than sufficient enough for us to run to suffer alongside those who are suffering.

We know that right now mothers, fathers, children, friends, spouses, lovers, coworkers, and neighbors are grieving and hurting, and though we may not recognize their faces or know their names or speak their language, it is in our grieving and hurting that we assure them that they are known and loved. Our solidarity is pledged to them in tears and prayers and the brokenness of our hearts. It is a sacred kinship offered in the raw-throated cries that we release into…

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