We share broken hearts this morning around the shootings in Texas that took the lives of 21 people, 19 of which were elementary school children. How do our hearts hold all this?The basic choice, I imagine, is this … do our hearts expand or do our hearts contract?Contraction is an easy and understandable response. Contraction holds us tighter in a protective cocoon, a diminishing circle skeptical, defensive, suspicious and uneasy in the world as it is. Expansion presents the harder choice. It asks of us to allow hearts broken to become hearts broken open. That entails on days like today more pain than joy, more despair than hope. And yet underneath that all lies the sober knowledge that God is love and God is here too. Walking with us. A God of care and compassion whose heart breaks right alongside ours.There is no easy way to hold this, to hold the death of 21 innocent souls – no glib answer that satisfies all questions or comforts all pain. The answer might simply be this, as Scarlett Lewis shared with us all those years ago on the impact of losing her beloved son Jesse in Newtown – for today, as best we can, with God’s tender help, let us choose love.
