	Bob Hostetler > Writing

More Tragedy Than We Can Handle?

by Bob Hostetler

What a tragic week.

Last Monday, the horrible saga of three-year-old Marcus Fiesel, who we now know was a victim long before most of us had heard of him, came to a conclusion of sorts when his foster parents were charged with his murder and gruesome attempt to cover their tracks.

The same day, Boulder, Colorado, prosecutors dropped the charges against John Mark Karr in the slaying of Jon Benet Ramsey, the six-year-old beauty contestant who was found murdered in her home on December 26, 1996. Authorities said the DNA evidence did not support the charges against Karr.

Two different cases. Both ignited media coverage (though Marcus’s story failed to capture coverage outside the region). Both seemed to grip our attention and call forth compassion. But why?

Why do these stories capture our attention and elicit our compassion, while others do not? After all, more than two thousand children are reported missing every day in this nation. An average of 8,000 cases of neglect and abuse are reported daily. An average of 158 children are abducted every day (not counting those abducted by family members). And, on average, a child is murdered every single day in this country.

Is it only the most tragic stories that capture our attention? Is it only the missing or murdered white kids we hear about (or care to hear about)? Or those with sufficiently appealing “human interest” angles (like the murdered “beauty queen” murdered on Christmas or the “homecoming queen” who disappears on Spring break)? Or the most “Jerry Springer-worthy” stories (like the pretty pregnant wife whose philandering husband reports her missing over the Christmas holidays)?

There is certainly something to those suggestions. With today’s highly competitive, fast-paced, twenty-four-hour news cycles, the pressure to find the “big story” often makes for strangely selective reporting. And there are probably journalists who are so cynical as to rifle through human tragedy looking in search of a Pulitzer or other prize (witness the managed and manufactured photos and reports some media outlets were spoon-fed by Hezbollah in the recent conflict in Lebanon). But, to be fair, most media outlets just flat out don’t have the resources to focus on stories that lack a strong news angle. So perhaps in this case, the public gets the news they want, the news that commands their interest.

But I think there’s something else at work here. The scope of such heartache is overwhelming. A single tragedy like that of Marcus Fiesel is utterly heartbreaking; multiply his story many times over, and who among us would not soon reach a point of emotional exhaustion? I’m not suggesting we avert our eyes or turn away from such tragedy, but even the most compassionate among us have limits. Our minds are finite; our hearts can absorb only so much sorrow. Who among us would watch the news or read the paper if every case of neglected, abused, missing, and murdered children were catalogued and detailed? Who among us would have any outrage left? Who among us would not be thoroughly numbed by such reports?

Indeed, that is a problem faced by social workers and children’s advocates everywhere. The ugliness and sadness is so rampant, the human heart can’t handle it: the typical results are burnout, cynicism, or despair. Or all three.

For me, as a man of faith, I can at least find some consolation in my belief that God’s compassion is infinite. My capacity to hurt for Marcus Fiesel, for example—and his poor bereaved mother, along with all those who love him still—is limited by my humanity. But I believe that God alone possesses infinite compassion, and his heart alone can break constantly for the constant tragedy that humans enact on each other.

I know, that belief doesn’t change the “facts on the ground.” And it sure doesn’t answer the question of how God can allow such evil (though when we ask that question, we always wish for God to interfere with someone else’s free will, not our own). But as for me, while I live in this world that has more sorrow than I can handle, I have no better refuge than to rely on a God who possesses more compassion than I can summon.

This article appeared in the September 3, 2006 edition of the Hamilton Journal-News.

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