When the news carries testimony from those who have been violated, displaced, or failed by those meant to protect them, we might ask what it means to be near to the broken-hearted. The psalmist speaks not of judgment on wrongdoers, but of the Lord’s closeness to those whose hearts are crushed—those whose voices demand to be heard, whose suffering cannot be rationalized away. Today’s headlines contain the voices of victims, witnesses, and those grieving systemic indifference. To sit with this news without rushing to verdict or explanation is itself an act of attention, a way of honoring the reality that brokenness is real and that proximity to it—listening, acknowledging, refusing to look away—matters.