The Epstein Files hurt.

Knowing the stats about all the other children who are abused, who have disappeared, hurts. It is pain. Evil, by its very existence, poisons that which it touches. We have been confronted by evil, confronted by a shocking reality in which its tendrils extend into every corner of what we had called normal. Even though we (mostly) knew that something was wrong, we didn’t have proof of how far the rot had gotten.

Can we acknowledge the pain? Can we acknowledge that we have been poisoned?

Grief isn’t something that the Western world is good at.

Now would be a good time to learn how to formalize the grieving process for our health and sanity. I proposed a three-day mourning period for the evil done by the Epstein class and I was met with objections.

I was told we needed justice, not grief. That it was wrong to sit in sadness, right to sit in anger. I was told it was not our fault.

Grief does not preclude anger, nor does it keep one from seeking justice. A time of contemplation can be used to firm resolve and consider options. It prepares the body for action. A time of formal grief gives us the sense that a step has been completed, and thus we can move forward. And fault or not, we are all involved. Can you rid your life of everything Bill Gates has touched? No? Nor can I. My money went to that filth, ignorant though I was. I want to wash my hands.

I fear that if we don’t sit with grief, we will poison ourselves further, with an anger that burns down into our souls, an anger that becomes despair. We need to use our anger well.

We must do things differently, starting now. A time of grief also serves as a time of contemplation. What shall we do? What must we change? How?

It is not darkness that goes to dispel the dark – but light. We must become part of the light. Light goes hand in hand with truth. And the truth is that we grieve. The truth is that we have been harmed, we have been poisoned.

When man’s inhumanity to man is on full display, we embrace greater humanity. The poison tells us to trust no one, the truth is that we need to live our lives with the people we choose to trust so our choices are informed.

I’m inviting you to a time of mourning simply because I believe it is good and right that we A) Mourn and B) Do so together. It’s high time we started being human together, and this is a start.