For Whom the Bell Tolls

I had to fight off shame when I found myself strangely unaffected by the recent shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and seven adults were senselessly gunned down. The families and friends of the victims must be suffering in anguish, the community devastated and the surviving schoolchildren traumatized. The event is profoundly tragic. My friends on Facebook expressed their sadness and tears, while I felt mostly emptiness.

I have had the same reaction to similar tragedies in the past. In 2001 I found myself thinking mostly of the  geopolitical impact of the 9/11 attacks. Yes, I was inspired by the courage and sacrifice of so many that were involved and admired their selflessness. And I recall being encouraged by the simple kindnesses and considerations that momentarily surfaced in everyday life. But I did not mourn for the victims.

I'm not proud of that. If one of the victims was close to me I would have been grief-stricken. But I didn't know anyone that died, and so felt only a general sadness at the evil in the world and man's inhumanity to man. After reflecting on my response to this latest tragedy in Connecticut, I attempted to understand why I feel the way I do, or rather, why I don't feel the way so many others do.  What character defect or darkness in my soul steels my heart to the suffering of these innocent people?

It stems from a defense mechanism.   There are times when I contemplate the great inequities in the world.  I have pondered the nearly five million children under the age of five who suffered preventable deaths last year, mostly from disease and starvation in sub-Sahara Africa.  In some of these countries, the mortality rate for children under five approaches 20%.   The magnitude of these numbers is almost overwhelming.  Yet what personally affects me the most is that these are preventable deaths which I am doing nothing to prevent. Instead, when my thoughts drift in that direction, I quietly allow my mind return to my business, rescued from the painful implications of a self-examination that would turn my sadness first to disappointment and then despair. 

Next year there will be more suffering in the world.  Another five million of these innocent children will perish. Their mothers, if alive, will grieve every bit as deeply as those that received the bitter reports in Newtown.  If I refuse to shed a guilty tear for those lives I might be able to save, then I cannot allow myself the same emotions for those for which I feel no culpability.

Things can be done. Steps can be taken. Yet it's hard to know how much of one's life and resources should be devoted to the distant and seemingly unsolvable problems in the world. There are no tidy solutions to this personal calculus.  Still, and not for the first time, I resolve to do more. 

I am reminded of the famous excerpt from John Donne's Meditations, which my daughter Lanee and I have attempted to memorize and occasionally recite together.  It is sadder and more significant to me today:

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea, 

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thy friends', 

Or of thine own were.

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore, never send to know

For whom the bell tolls.

It tolls for thee.