It’s Lent in the majority of the Christian world. The season between Christmas and Easter is the mirror of the long academic slog between the beginning of the semester and Spring Break: the focus is not on joy but repentance. I read an article that shared pain brings people together and makes more effective teams: maybe my students will take heart in that.
But I’m writing in this blog that no one reads because I’m troubled by Lenten reflections. I found She Reads Truth, an organization that combines daily Bible reading with beautiful design. With each reading, a writer reflects on her life today and tries to apply and illuminate the text through the lens of Lent. I enjoy reading these: I like the little reflection on bigger things in the morning. But as I read Lamentations, I can only think of eastern Ukraine. Syria. Palestine, some days. Iraq.
11 All her people groan
as they search for bread;
they barter their treasures for food
to keep themselves alive.
“Look, Lord, and consider,
for I am despised.”
People really are trading their treasures for food in these places and others. The scene of bombed-out desolation depicted is not some past memory for many of our contemporaries.
Listen, all you peoples;
look on my suffering.
My young men and young women
have gone into exile.
Due to my recent travels I think of the drug war in Michoacan. Severed heads along the road. Violence against teachers. I asked what young people do for work down there. “Go north.”
19 “I called to my allies
but they betrayed me.
My priests and my elders
perished in the city
while they searched for food
to keep themselves alive.
And after all that — the vision of destruction, the news stories flashing past my eyes, the radio documentaries about starving grannies echoing in my ear — the call to repentance is to be a better person.
A better person?
We spend a lot of time on self-improvement. I love self-improvement! It’s fun, productive, challenging, interesting. But does it distract us from the greater task of improving our communities and our world?