Good Friday and Goodbye Grandpa
I don’t know if I can say anything meaningful about Good Friday that hasn’t already been said, and better. A few years ago, for instance, my favorite blogger Rachel Held Evans wrote a series called “ Holy Week for Doubters ,” which speaks poignantly to an element of faith oft unspoken, and one which resonates strongly on Good Friday, that sometimes God feels absent. For at least three days, Jesus lay dead in the ground, and those who loved him felt empty, bereft, hopeless. And being a Christian doesn’t exempt us from experiencing fear or insecurity in the face of life’s senselessness. Sometimes, doubt is the only honest answer to life’s bigger questions. Even I wrote a post two years ago, reflecting on the holiday after spending an afternoon working in a juvenile detention center. On a day set aside to recognize the deep pain in the world, and God’s presence in the midst of it, I sat in a big concrete box with kids who had suffered more in their short years than most of us wi...