Train Bombings in Moscow

RantWoman really needs to focus on some paperwork for the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing. RantWoman is unsure whether the degree to which sometimes waves of faith-centered obsession wash over her work is a sign of deep calling or just total mental salad bowl dysfunction. The point is that RantWoman looked away for a moment from her must-do list and found the following prayer about today's train bombings in Moscow.

http://blog.sojo.net/2010/03/29/prayer-of-the-day-2010-03-29/

RantWoman has ridden the Moscow metro, though she is unsure about visiting the stations where bombings occurred. RantWoman has also ridden the Nevsky Express, the train from Moscow to St. Petersburg where another bombing attributed to secessionists and problems from Russia's troubled south in the North Caucusus. RantWoman during a spell in St. Petersburg decades ago when passport stamps still said Leningrad had a fascinating transit excursion and conversation buddy from Dagestan. The point is that these connections invite particular suffering strangers into closer focus even if one is led to pray for some general category of suffering strangers.

In particular RantWoman pointedly demurs from praying ONLY for "Russian brothers and sisters in Christ." Excuse the bleep out of me, but "Lord make me an instrument of thy peace" or "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" does not apply only to "Russian brothers and sisters in Christ." The very point of the bombings is that Russia is a multiethnic and multireligious state and that its citizens and government need the prayers of peace-oriented people everywhere about working out how to live together. Further, RantWoman would pedantically point out that not all Christians in Russia are ethnically Russian, and in Russia it sometimes matters a lot whether one means "ethnically Russian" or geographically from Russia. RantWoman absolutely does not condone violence and resolutely concurs with prayers that those behind bombings be brought to justice. RantWoman still believes that prayers for the situation must address all the people involved.