God of shared tears,
This is too much to hold. Our bodies cannot take it. Release us from the underlying guilt that we are not doing enough, crying enough, working hard enough. Sometimes it is easier to cry for another than for ourselves. Help us encounter our own emotions with the same attunement we possess for others. Develop our discernment for when our experience of the pain of others is good, and when it is an exercise in self-escape or saviorism. We confess that too often we give our attention only to receive attention. We perform empathy to feel a part of something. Protect us from the commodification of our shared lament. In all our efforts toward emotional solidarity, help us to truly center those who are hurting, and decenter the forces of whiteness that would leverage tragedy for profit. Expose how public performances of lament only serve to mask the detached morality of the most privileged. If we weep with the suffering, may their cries always ring louder. If we feel anything at all, make it honest. Amen.