Does the state of the world keep you up at night?

Makes me see myself in black and white…

There is a particular kind of grief that might be called moral sorrow—the ache that comes not only from our own suffering, but from witnessing the suffering of others. It is the sleeplessness that asks why children go hungry, why the vulnerable are abused, why justice is so often delayed. Sinéad O’Connor seemed to carry this burden. Her songs and public life revealed a conscience deeply troubled by the pain of the world, especially where power had failed the innocent. I recognize that same moral sorrow in myself. It is not despair, nor is it self-righteousness. It is the quiet weight of believing that every human life possesses immeasurable dignity and longing for a world that reflects that truth. Perhaps moral sorrow is the cost of compassion—and, when tempered with hope, one of the ways love refuses to look away.