No matter how I try to approach something meaningful to say, it falls short. I must confess to being extremely overwhelmed by the barrage of memes, points of view, pontification, heated opinions, heartbreaking images, and politics of it all. It’s just so many words, not one of which can force the clock back and save those twenty little children and the six adults charged with their care. If only we could.

I wish I were eloquent enough to write something that hasn’t already been said, but then I risk becoming the very thing that is distressing me so intensely right now.

Leonard Bernstein said, “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

Here are two pieces.

“Hallelujah,” by Leonard Cohen (a tribute to the victims in Newtown by The Voice).

“Adagio for Strings” by Samuel Barber (as performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic).

I invite you to take the time to listen and watch. For me, music has given rise to a fresh flow of tears, and reminded me that we must mourn first, and let the rest follow after.