Evidence of mercy amid the madness

Thanks to the availability of instantaneous, global communication and our addiction to it, 21st century humans are permitted — perhaps condemned is a better word — to witness daily episodes of brutality and violence and, particularly over the past few months, horrendous killings.

We were spared viewing the June slayings of Democrat lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and the nightmarish shooting of school children attending Mass at the Church of the Annunciation, in Minneapolis.

But the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk happened before countless smart phones set to video. The senseless murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was caught on security cameras and released to the public with appropriate edits but remained gruesome.

Precisely as I filed a piece on Kirk and Zarutska, news was breaking about yet another school shooting, this time in Evergreen, Colo., and I went to my prayer space, anguished that the pace of our violence had become so relentless.

And of course, nearly every day we see the carnage of seemingly unsolvable war in the Middle East and between Russia and Ukraine.

I write this on Yom Kippur, as details are still emerging about a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester, England, killing two. On social media we saw a Jewish victim dying in his own blood as police took down the attacker. It’s unclear, yet whether the culprit was wearing explosives, but he had already driven his car into people and then stabbed several while attempting to enter the building on this Jewish High Holy Day.

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