Regarding Kathy Hudson's commentary "We must not accept violence as way of life" (July 22):
Undeserved. Unexplainable. Unnerving. These are the feelings that accompany the loss of Molly Macauley, whom I did not know personally, although we met once several years ago at the Christian Science Church on University Parkway.
Finding solace, even hope, will take great love, the kind the Amish expressed at the loss of their daughters, senselessly killed in a one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania in 2006. Their forgiveness and sense of Christly reconciliation enabled them — all of us perhaps — to carry on their lives and move past the crimping fear and loss.
In an era of extreme emotion and retribution, spiritual restoration is not easy, perhaps. But there is this ancient yet timely assurance, "though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."
The Psalmist's reasoning rests on a sense of the presence of God, divine, universal love, as Ms. Macauley would have understood.
No, this will not explain the enigma of her disappearance. But it may help each of us emerge out of the cloister of fear and into the daylight of normalcy, with an expectation of healing and amelioration of our shared existence and place on earth.
Rich Evans
The writer manages the committees on publication for the First Church of Christ, Scientist.