I haven’t sensed this kind of collective anxiety since 2012, after those beautiful children were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Prior to that, it was 9/11.

Deep despair. The present despair is that the recent mass casualties in Israel and Gaza are just a foretaste of the bloodshed yet to come.

And fear. Fear that synagogues and mosques and people deemed to be “the other” in our own communities will become targets of violence and that more people will die like the innocent Palestinian American boy in Illinois who was stabbed by his hateful landlord.

On Sunday, I told the community I serve that they might consider a news media diet, that hours of TV News each day, featuring dead civilians and homes bombed to smithereens, are detrimental to their emotional well-being and spiritual health. I told them that we must double down and be witness to our faith, faith that proclaims the image of God embodied in every person, no matter their politics, religion or ethnicity.

I reminded them that this outbreak of violence is personal to many people and that in war there are no sports teams to root for, only innocent lives to pray for. In the end, our addiction to violence allows us to pick sides, yet this violates the God of love who we worship.

It feels like we are at the edge of a precipice in national and international politics, in the climate crisis, and in the way we order our common life. For a time such as this, I hope and pray for people of good will in the Connecticut River Valley, that we will rise up and respond to the needs of the world with generosity, compassion, and love.

I pray that we will revisit and embody the song made famous by the International Children’s Choir in 1955: “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” I pray that we can turn back from the brink and model for the world what it means to be the beloved community.

Rev. Mark Seifried

Pastor of Haydenville Congregational Church