Editorial December 9, 2013 Issue

Renewed compassion

The Editors

In the news media today, much space is given to anniversaries—the first man in space, the Rwandan genocide, the end of apartheid in South Africa, the 12th anniversary of 9/11, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, last December.

As a result, it’s all too easy, especially in turbulent times, to feel “compassion fatigue” and take shelter under a sagging roof of inevitability or human fallibility. But there is wise perspective and healing in an observation made by the founder of this magazine, Mary Baker Eddy, in answering a question about John the Baptist in her Miscellaneous Writings
1883–1896: “Every individual character … at some date must cry in the desert of earthly joy; and his voice be heard divinely and humanly. In the desolation of human understanding, divine Love hears and answers the human call for help; and the voice of Truth utters the divine verities of being which deliver mortals out of the depths of ignorance and vice. This is the Father’s benediction” (p. 81).

Bible texts assure us of God’s unstinting care at all times.