“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”  – Rabbi Tarfon

Yesterday morning, walking home from dropping my little kids off at their school, I crossed the street just as the middle school bus picked up Fred and his peers (a little bit earlier than usual). I waved goodbye to my eldest and continued on my way. A few seconds later, I looked up and saw a kid from our street, loaded down with backpack, trumpet in its case and an additional carrier bag. I saw him just as he looked up and saw his bus close its door, fold up its stop sign and drive away. The look on his face was heartbreaking. Immediately and simultaneously, there was confusion and anxiety and worry: a portrait of tragedy.

“Was that your bus?” I asked him.
“Was that my bus?” he parroted back to me.
“You go to the middle school, right?”
He nodded.“Do you have some other way to get to school?” I asked.
He looked at me, dumbstruck.
“You live on my street, right?” I pressed. “Do you have a parent still at home?”
He shook his head. Finally, he spoke slowly: “No, my mom’s at work.”
“Who’s your mom?” I asked. “Can you call her? Can she come take you to school?”
He looked down at the phone in his hand, like he was surprised to see it there. “Yeah. I can call her. But she can’t come. I know.”
“Do you just need a ride?” I asked. “I’m Fred’s mom – in 7^th grade? You know Fred? He just got on that bus. But I can take you if there’s no other way for you to get there. You want me to take you to school?”

He turned his face up to me again, disbelieving. “You’d do that?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Why don’t you call your mom and make sure it’s ok with her and we’ll just hop in my car and I’ll drive you to school.”

He was typically 6^th-grade silent for most of the drive. I think he was still shocked that someone would go out of their way to help him out. Shocked. And relieved. I may have sat in traffic for 20 minutes unnecessarily but it was a small price to pay for the look of relief he flashed me as he clambered out of my car in front of the school.

***

A few hours later, I met a clergy-friend for coffee at a playground where she was letting her 18-month-old son run around. My friend and I spent most of our time together grieving the nightmarish reality we face these days: so much tragedy, so much violence, so much wrong and broken in the world. As her son toddled from the slide to the swings to the sand and back again, uninterested in any one thing for more than a few minutes, we chased after him – and our seemingly dashed dreams of building God’s kingdom on earth.

Finally, the boy found the see-saw, something he’d never been old enough to play on before.

“Hold tight to him there,” I told my friend as her son climbed up onto the seat on one side. I walked to the other end and slowly pushed down and the child rose into the air. His gleeful surprise was written all over his face. Laughter erupted from his open-mouthed grin, framed by a shock of un-cut brown hair floating in the wind and the pure blue sky behind him. He couldn’t get enough. Up and down up and down he went. My legs ached, my arms ached, but every time I paused and asked if he was done, he signed “more! more!” So more I did. The aches in my body a worthy cost for the unadulterated joy that erupted in us all.

***

In the last hour of the day, just before midnight, I woke to the sound of my youngest child coughing incessantly. I padded to his bedroom and found him wide awake. Next door, in his own room, his older brother was quietly moaning because severe congestion was keeping him from a good night’s sleep. I brought them both cups of water and stroked their heads. “I’m here if you need me,” I told Fred. “I’m just sitting up with Toby in his room. You’re not alone.” He nodded and sniffled and snuffled and rolled over, comforted by the knowledge of my presence.

And then I sat on Toby’s bed and stroked his precious head until the cough quieted. I watched his eyes droop close and then flick open for a moment, droop close and flick open, like the boy on the see-saw earlier in the day. And I waited until they closed and stayed closed, until his breathing regulated and his sleep was sound.

And as I waited, I thought of the children of Gaza, the babies and the toddlers, the soccer players and the young scholars, the squabbling siblings and the growing youth. I thought of them as they must be now, terrorized and anxious, grieving and in pain, traumatized and suffering – by the bombs raining down on their homes and their hospitals, by a forced evacuation when there is nowhere left to go, by dehydration and starvation imposed by an occupying power in the name of vengeance, by the witness of the ones they hold dear torn from them by genocidal violence. And I prayed.

May the children I have helped today, O merciful Lord, be stand-ins for the ones I am powerless to serve. May there be a child in Gaza today who has felt a surprising moment of relief from anxiety as surely as the kid who climbed out of my car this morning. May there be a child in Gaza today who, in the midst of a nightmare, discovered un-dreamt-for joy as certainly as that boy on his see-saw. May there be a child in Gaza today who is comforted in his unimaginable suffering, even just for one fleeting second, by the miraculous thought that she is not alone, as my own beloved lucky ones are comforted.

***

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now,” said the ancient Jewish sage Rabbi Tarfon. Wise words. But that is not all.

Do justly, here, I say. Do justly, here. Love mercy, here. Walk humbly, here. I cannot help the children in Gaza. But I can help the little ones that God gives me here. I can bring relief and joy and comfort to those around me here and now, in this place and time. And I will trust that my small work adds light to the world, even in the darkest places. For what else can I do?