Traveling in Place

"Good" Friday?

It's a gray, dim, rainy morning, fitting for the day when we remember Jesus' crucifixion. The church building is quiet as a few people enter and leave the sanctuary during our day-long prayer vigil. As part of my reflection, I recalled a post I published on a Good Friday a few years ago. I found it and re-read it. I decided to re-post it today, because it still expresses well how I feel on this day every year.

One of my sons, when he was 9 years old, asked me, “Dad, why do we call the day Jesus died good Friday? What’s good about it?”

When I heard that question, old tapes from my past immediately began to play. I had to stop myself from saying that, even though Jesus’ death was sad, it was a good death because it made eternal life possible for all who choose to believe in Jesus. But I did stop myself. My son had asked a perfectly reasonable question, and I told him so. “There wasn’t anything good about it,” I said.

I came from a culture that didn’t even hold Good Friday services. To do so was considered too “Catholic.” My wife and I, both from the Deep South, were recently trying to remember whether our churches even observed Palm Sunday. There was certainly no processional or waving of palms. (Again, that would be too Catholic.) We decided the only mention of it was in Sunday School, where it was referred to as Jesus’ “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem. Growing up, we never heard the term “Maundy Thursday.” If anybody in my congregation was in church on Good Friday, it was because the downtown churches were having a “community service” that – God help us – included Episcopalians, Catholics, and other pagans.

Ironic as this sounds, those most likely to refer to the day of Jesus’ crucifixion as “good” are those least likely to observe it. The logic goes like this: there’s

Farewell to (a Strange Sort of) Winter

I’m looking out the window on this first full day of spring and can’t help but chuckle. It’s snowing. It won’t be enough to stick, but that doesn’t matter. Winter never fully developed this year. Our snowfall wasn’t much more than half our normal. On many days over the last three months, we went outside wearing light jackets or sweatshirts.

And now, on the first day of spring, it’s snowing.

Maybe this is winter’s way of saying, “I know I haven’t really been myself this year, but now it’s time to go.”

Here’s my response.

Goodbye, winter. I wish we could have spent more time together. You seemed to be present for only a few weeks here and there. You got really cold a couple of times, but the cold never lasted. You gave us a paltry amount of snow by our Central New York standards, but more memorably, you drenched us with heavy rains that caused flooding and ice that was so thick and stubborn it couldn’t be moved. I like you when you are yourself, deadening the mechanical noise of the world with heavy blankets of snow. I missed having you around consistently. I never got the chance to really hibernate with you. I’ve come to enjoy burrowing down between the high snow banks, drinking hot tea and warming myself by the fire, alone with you, a good book, and my thoughts. A couple of times, I began to settle into that quiet place, but then you disappeared, and I felt cheated. I’ve come to depend on you to nurture my winter spirituality, a season that I did not always recognize or appreciate.

This Is Not the Answer

I’ve heard several people remark that the season of Lent has been hard to enter into this year. “It started too early,” I’ve heard more than once. “I just wasn’t ready for it.”

Lent did start early – February 10 to be exact. We had barely emerged from all those special observances between the beginning of Advent and Epiphany before it was time to hunker down in a spirit of reflection and repentance.

I’ve had trouble getting into Lent this year, too, but I don’t think it has anything to do with timing. My trouble has been deep concern over the presidential election. It seems that, whenever I have time to think about things other than ministry-related commitments, my thoughts go immediately toward dissecting what is happening in the primary races for the White House. I don’t seem to have room in my head for anything else.

I always become keenly interested in the process of choosing a president. It’s so Americana and it has always fascinated me. But, as everyone from paid pundits to next-door neighbors have observed, this election cycle is different from any we have experienced in our lifetimes. The normal rules do not apply. A veritable revolt threatens to destroy one of the two major political parties and fundamentally shift the political landscape for the first time since before the Civil War.

The leading candidate for the Republican nomination hasn’t only galvanized millions of people to get involved in the process. He hasn’t only slain sacred cows and challenged party establishment assumptions. In fact, these things pale in comparison to a far more disturbing consequence of his campaign. To use the apt language of Jonathan Alter, Donald Trump has “ripped the thin veneer of civility” off of the political process. His speeches are stand-up comedy routines based on insults and innuendos. He calls his rallies “shows.” He favors banning Muslims