Yesterday, I was talking to some friends; amongst other topics, we reflected on the news and the tens of thousands killed in recent conflicts in the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere. One made the point that when major charities make their appeals, they focus on one or two individuals at most to illustrate the suffering. If they did any more, we would not be able to take it in. Our capacity for empathy is easily overwhelmed. There is nothing new in this. In the First World War, Edward Shillito, a poet and Congregationalist minister in London reflected on how people had grown immune to the daily lists of dead and missing soldiers. In his poem, "Hardness of Heart" he complains that the deaths "are too many now" for anyone to comprehend. Only God understands and grieves each loss; our tears are no more.In the first watch no death but made us mourn;
Now tearless eyes run down the daily roll,
Whose names are written in the book of death;
For sealed are now the springs of tears, as when
The tropic sun makes dry the torrent's course
After the rains. They are too many now
For mortal eyes to weep, and none can see
But God alone the Thing itself and live.
We look to seaward, and behold a cry!
To skyward, and they fall as stricken birds
On autumn fields; and earth cries out its toll,
From the Great River to the world's end—toll
Of dead, and maimed and lost; we dare not stay;
Tears are not endless and we have no more.