Tears of the World.

428072467_2541625166006117_1459738230615738579_nKathleen O'Connor's reflections on Lamentations and the Tears of the World; and a copper beech leaf, photographed yesterday in the rain, which seems to capture an image of those tears, and the immense sadness of a world broken by human action and inaction, causing fellow human beings to suffocate for lack of hope.
 
O'Connor writes with telling wisdom: "Tears can give watery birth to hope. They can wash out space once occupied by despair, fury or sorrow, and in that space hope can emerge uninvited. Hope comes apart from human will, decision, or optimism. It comes as a gift out of despair…And God honors tears, preserves them, and records them in a book says the Psalmist: You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your record." (O'Connor, p. 130)
 
And so, out of lament comes the hope that one day those who have caused the tears of others will be held accountable by the God who counts tears, and who in Christ wept.
 
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