Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger. Is it...: or, It is nothing pass by: Heb. pass by the way?
Lamentations 1:12 (KJV)
The ancient voice of Lamentations calls us to witness suffering without turning away—to see it, to acknowledge it, to let it matter. Today’s landscape holds many forms of sorrow: the measles deaths among children who had no voice in their own protection, mothers whose bodies lack what their unborn need, families displaced by storms and conflict, communities fractured along old and new lines of division. These griefs do not fit neatly into narrative arcs of progress or blame; they simply are, and they ask something of those who hear them. To read such news with eyes open is to resist the comfortable distance that allows us to pass by, and to sit instead with the reality that the vulnerable often pay the steepest price when systems fracture and competing interests collide.
What prompted this
Today's news carries the weight of many fractures: political division deepens across continents, economic tensions escalate through trade and energy conflicts, and vulnerable populations—children facing disease, mothers without adequate care, communities caught in regional chaos—bear the heaviest burdens.
- Germany's Merz attacks AfD in stormy debate after far-right election win BBC World
- Oil hits $100 a barrel for first time since July after US and Houthi strikes BBC World
- US to ban imports of some Canadian alcohol, dairy goods and motorbikes BBC World
- Russia and Ukraine exchange strikes as two killed at Moldova border BBC World
- Greetings from Paris, where the 2024 Olympics balloon rises again NPR News
- A new Anthropic model seeks to test how AI could impact the U.S. economy NPR News
- Whatever happened to the measles outbreak that shocked a country this year? NPR News
- Trump officials propose sweeping changes to the census that would reshape voting maps NPR News
- Babies born to anaemic mothers have smaller brains, study finds The Guardian
- Hijacking pirates exploit regional chaos to return to seas off Somalia The Guardian