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Good morning. The morning scan of news features has for several days now been met with the delightful face of a fair-haired little boy called Arthur. And every day that delight is immediately frozen by a grip of horror as the wave of remembrance hits. It’s the story we wish were not true – the events that a children’s charity called, ‘horrendous, horrific, heart-breaking’ but which soon find the well of language dry. Worse, he died believing – and we have it in his own words - that ‘no one is going to feed me; no one loves me.’ In Arthur’s case we know his name, his face, his story, his neighbours and family. All that breaks though our inured inability to respond emotionally or practically to most child deaths. According to the independent Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, about 15 000 children in the world under the age of six die every day – from preventable causes. But what is an appropriate reaction to the cruelty of which humans are capable? One reader of Arthur ‘s story wrote, ‘It brought back memories of my own abusive childhood. I have not cried like this for ages.’ Processing memories of suffering through lamentation is an ancient discipline, which has long connected the cruel death of children to the bigger stories of the communities in which they live. A reading from Matthew’s gospel often used in Christmas services takes the much older words of the prophet Jeremiah to lament over King Herod’s killing of all boys under the age of 2, living near Bethlehem, to ensure that the infant Jesus would be among them: A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more. The cruel killing of innocent children is not, it seems, restricted to our own times, but is a shame that darkens every age and culture. It is therefore something of a miracle that light ever shines in that depth of darkness. Yet Jeremiah moves from lament to hope, to a day when God’s laws of love will be ‘written on our hearts’ rather than ignored in our books. Perhaps our current shared cry of lament can renew a sensitivity to the still-unmet Millennium goal to reduce global child mortality, to hope, and to action. But for now, the ‘cry in the wilderness’ will for many be simply silence. For others, like the players of his favourite football club Birmingham City, it will be ‘Arthur, we love you.’