Empathetic Grief

I live less than a mile away from Club Q, the site of Colorado’s most recent mass shooting. While tragically, this type of violence happens often in the U.S., having it occur so close to my home—my safe place—rattled me. It’s easy to distance ourselves from tragedy when there’s physical distance present, but close proximity forces us to reconcile with pain and brokenness in a more palpable way.

As I followed news updates about this tragedy, and witnessed people’s response to it online via social media, I found myself shocked by some of the responses. While many people posted about how heartbroken they were, I also saw many posts from people of faith along these lines: “Even though we don’t agree with the lifestyle or choices of the people killed, we should still mourn with those who mourn.”

While these types of sentiments seem well-intentioned—they are, after all, confirming the tragic nature of what happened—their implications (being that many people dismissed this tragedy because its victims came from different walks of life) deeply troubled me.

Innocent civilians were caught off guard by an assailant, and thereby traumatized, injured, and killed. This type of violence should leave us weeping at the injustice, grieving the lives lost, and mourning with those who lost loved ones.

Why, then, do some individuals of faith use the victims’ sexuality as an excuse to brush aside such injustice? Where in scripture do we see Jesus use differences as an excuse to ignore those who hurt?

We shouldn’t have to convince people—especially the people of God—that we should mourn violence and death.

We shouldn’t add caveats about only mourning people made in God’s image when they conform to our expectations or standards.

We shouldn’t use our differences with others as an excuse not to care about their pain.

I write this not as a condemnation, but rather as an invitation into deeper compassion and fuller embodiment of God’s heart for people.

Let’s remove our caveats and fear of differences so we can embody the kindness of Christ and truly mourn with those who mourn.