Now that Epiphany (and an expected illness that sidelined me for about a week) are over, and as many of us enjoy the fruits of the recent holiday season, I hope that we, me included, do not overlook the suffering that is so rampant in the world. In particular, I am thinking about the thousands of people who were killed in the earthquakes that struck first, Turkey; and next, the Atlas Mountains and Morocco.  Although the world's attention has long since shifted elsewhere, the survivors of these natural disasters continue to deal with the devastation that these events wrought in their lives. 

    I also think about the thousands upon thousands who have been killed in Gaza as well as the hundreds who were killed in Israel.  Or the long suffering people of Ukraine who continue to feel the blows of the megalomanic who rules Russia.  Tragedy is everywhere.

    In addition, closer to home, I think about the first homicides of American cities and the families whose New Year has been shattered irreparably and forever.

    And then I wonder, given the divinely bestowed goodness and purposefulness of the world, how to put it all together.  So it is that I must daily seek to remind myself how the day on which the the recent holiday season is based and, for those who care to look, its potent expression of God's presence, underscores that although we continue to look aghast at the pain and turmoil of the planet, and walk, as it were, "in a riddle," we do not walk without light.

    And, in the biggest picture, very little more.

    It's the greatest challenge.  Yet it's the only one worth pursuing.