Daily Prayer - Responding to tragedy

Good Friday morning, my friends.
 
It has been a tragic and difficult week here in Ottawa.  On Monday the body of a young woman, a victim of violence, was discovered in a field not far from our home.  On Tuesday the sister of our next door neighbour succumbed to cancer.  On Wednesday a horrific crash involving a transit bus and a passenger train claimed the lives of six of our citizens and injured 30 more.  A good friend of mine almost got on that bus.  At the last minute he decided it was too full and waited two minutes for the next one.  That decision very likely saved his life (he would have been at the front of the bus).  We are still thanking God.  Many other families and loved ones, however, have a much, much more difficult story to tell.
 
How do we react to events such as these?  If you are like me you might tend to speak quickly in platitudes and empty phrases.  Reading this prayer this morning has prompted me to "pause before I speak or praise or hope."
 
If there are people around you hurting and in need of comfort and prayer (and there are), perhaps you, and I, should take a few minutes to allow God to provide us with guidance on how to proceed before we open our mouths.
 

Amazing Grace and Eternal Peace be yours,
Bruce
 

When I behold the problems of our world,
O Lord,
I pray not to be tempted to quick answers.
 
When every tongue declares a different Truth,
when every people praises its own righteousness,
let me pause before I speak or praise or hope.
 
Let me look inward
seeking to discover eternal truths
implanted there by Thee,
truths greater than those heard
in the outer multitude of voices and words.
 
And let me remember always that to be loud is not to be right,
to be strange is not to be forbidden,
to be new is not to be frightful,
to be black is not to be ugly.
 
Thus let me find truths true to Thee,
that I may live with them,
and Thee,
and myself,
in peace.
 
(a prayer from the 8th century Gelasian Sacramentary, the second oldest extant liturgical book in the West, by way of http://bobhostetler.blogspot.ca/2013/09/when-i-behold-problems-of-our-world.html)