How do both nation and individual cope with grief?
It is interesting to see that the basic process of grief works itself out at both the individual and the corporate level. First comes numbness, shock, and an air of unreality. In the first stage it is necessary to simply express emotions together. We hold hands, cry together, and embrace. It is not a time for moralizing and instructing and looking for lessons. It is a time to “weep with those who weep” (Rom.12:15). But second comes a stage of anger and/or creeping despair. In this stage there is a persistent need to ‘make sense out of all this’. People have to find a way to think about the tragedy so that it does not make the rest of their lives meaningless. Ironically, there seems to be no way for people to deal with grief at this level without having recourse to the basic gospel dynamic of death-leading-to-resurrection. This is the basic approach that the mayor and governor have invoked and used. They say: “Out of the loss of good things will come even greater good things. We will co
