Moral distress is an experience many of us share as we watch in horror while those who have the power to maintain fair governance, broker peace, and address systemic injustices fail to do so. It happens at the local, personal level too: we try to spread the truth and watch while loved ones fall prey to conspiracies. We live within a democratic system, and so we try to take responsibility: we raise our voices, donate our dollars, gather our bodies in the streets.

We cling to hope and keep at it, using whatever influence we have to do our part, and still we witness unfathomable human suffering. We turn to prayer and seem to hear God’s silence. Eventually it becomes too much, and we find our hearts, our minds, our bodies in genuine distress. Powerless responsibility and moral distress wear us down. 

So what are we to do?