15/04/2015

Good morning. There are big tragedies that echo down the decades – like the 96 deaths and many injuries at the Hillsborough football ground. And there are personal, private tragedies that never make the headlines. As outsiders, we encounter the survivors of each sort of tragedy in the same way. We meet a person, or a family, in pain.So how do we react? How should we react?In forty years of meeting those left behind I’ve come to know many pitfalls. I’ve wanted to rush in behind a defensive shield of kindness and sympathy, filling any silence with a well-meant word – but that’s my feelings determining what I do and say. Or I’ve been overwhelmed by my own feelings of inadequacy. Knowing that there’s nothing I can do to make it all better, I say nothing, and metaphorically – or even physically – cross the street. And, yes, I have done that.In all those years I’ve come to realise that I get it wrong when I set the agenda. When I decide what’s best for someone else – even when all my instincts say they do need to cry, or stop drinking, or leave the house.Or when I let my grief dictate my reaction – because no matter how sad I may feel in the face of someone else’s tragedy, it’s not my world that’s been changed irrevocably.Looking back, I think I’ve got it most right when I’ve done least – but been there and listened and sometimes cried – not for me, but with them. But been there – even if “there” is no more than a silent handshake, a look into someone else’s eyes and an open question.Lord God,when we are faced by someone else’s tragedy,give us the insight to forget our feelings,and the courage to open ourselves to their pain.Amen.