Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Lent: Bahrain Crackdown and Japanese Horror

It's Lent. And there are all kinds of horrible things happening in the world.

Somehow that seems right, since Lent is about entering into the stories of suffering, pain, and death in the life of Jesus (see chapter 6 of the book for more on Lent).

Because of globalized media, we hear and see all kinds of stories across the world. And the most compelling and gripping stories are those like the devastation in Japan. We cannot help but be gripped by the stories we see and hear. There are live amateur videos of the wave of water sweeping into villages and towns, steadily leveling everything. Nuclear meltdowns are looming. It's overwhelming.

But it's Lent.

On a smaller scale, our family is gripped by today's crackdown on peaceful Bahraini protestors. After hoping for dialogue for a few weeks, at least a thousand Saudi troops swept over the causeway into Bahrain on Monday, reinforcing the Bahraini security forces so they could burn down the encampments on Pearl Roundabout (see video below). In this tiny country that we love, it's sad and depressing.

But it's Lent.

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