I’m never sure whether I should never watch the news or should always watch the news.

Every day, my heart goes out to the many different victims that reflect both the nature of life and the nature of our conflicted society.

I rarely end up feeling wiser or better, and my heart goes out to victims so often I’m not sure there is much heart left over. I’m grateful for Ed Gulley’s Tin Man, he reminds me to never forget my heart, even when the suffering of the world seems overwhelming.

In our world all of the suffering comes to us instantly and continuously, there is no reflecting on it or absorbing it, all we can do is reel and wonder sometimes. In color and on video, the images flow past us like a river of sorrow. We can, if we are not careful, forget the glory and love and good in the world.

How are we to process all of this violence and suffering, be merciful to the victims, and go forward with our lives? How are we to find enough mercy to go around, for them, for us?

I think of images of tiny things, grass, flowers, working dogs, sheep, babies, friends, can guide us. Things that love and live and grow are what really matter, they change everything, they bring us down to earth.

I think every day of mercy.

As Anne Lamott wrote in her lyrical book Hallelujah Anyway: Rediscovering Mercy, “The world keeps going on. You can have yet another cup of coffee and keep working on your plans. Or you can take the risk to be changed, surrounded, and and indwelled by this strange yeasty mash called mercy, there for the asking at the frog pond, the River Jordan, the channel that flows between the lagoon and the sea.

Today, I think of mercy, I take the risk to be change and surrounded by it.

When I post this, Maria and I will head off to Vermont for one night to celebrate our great love for one another, our seven years of marriage. People can say whatever they wish about me, good and bad, but such a love inspires and defines me,  and gives me strength.

We will find an inexpensive hotel, read and love one another, find a gift for Robin, buy a belt and some socks, talk and laugh and sleep. The tiny things matter, they refresh and ground us. Our trips are sweet and short, we will return in the morning. We will leave the world behind.

A day of love for us, if we cannot pause to honor it, then how true could it possibly be?