Good Friday – or Friday Bloody Friday – poem by Bruce Whealton">Good Friday – or Friday Bloody Friday – poem by Bruce Whealton
Published April 11, 2009 | 
">Bruce WhealtonGood Friday! Or Friday Bloody Friday!
call it Dark Friday or Bloody Friday. That works better for me... They call it Good Friday - for us Christians. How good was it for Jesus the Christ? At least for me, I wasn't hung on a Cross on this day... but I've been a bit mad and depressed. I feel for Jesus – crucified - And find nothing 'holy' about this good friday! Where was his father while he was being beaten? If he was so special why stand by and do nothing? God should have rained down fire and coal and burned those who would harm his precious son!... if he was special. How special must he have felt when they put a thorn on his head, stripped him of his clothing and whipped him? How special did he feel when they nailed him to a cross and left him to bleed to death. I couldn't help feeling this way each time I heard Father talk about how “holy” and “special” this week is to be for us. What am I to make of this? Nothing makes much sense. “Jesus knew suffering” they say. And I want to shoot back - “yes, because that's the way an omnipotent God treats his son.” I'm sorry. I want to believe but all I feel is anger and depression abandonment and confusion. But I bring this to God and say, “It makes no sense!” And it is no comfort - though it should be - that on this “Good Friday” I was not nailed to a cross, myself. By Bruce Whealton April 11th 2009
Faith and Doubt #2 – poetry by Bruce Whealton">Faith and Doubt #2 – poetry by Bruce Whealton
Published March 26, 2009 | ">Bruce WhealtonThis is a follow-up poem to the previous poem in this series of 2 poems.
Faith and Doubt #2
I go about my activities
with the church
and wonder how my questions
are received by others
when it's time to share one's faith.
There is such confusion for me -
Doubts?
Not exactly doubts but
confusion.
Let me explain...
please, if you will indulge me...
We read from the Gospel accordion to John,
chapter 3, verse 16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have eternal life.”
Why?
I've been a Christian my whole life;
you'd think I'd know the answer and would not
have to ask why.
I feel very much like a child
in my approach to certain matters -
matters relating to finding meaning in life,
what is real
and the nature of things – everything -
and so I ask “Why”
quite often...
just like a child does,
so an explanation must be that simple
just as one might explain this to a 5 year old.
Why did God give his son away?
He gave his son to die for us?
Why?
Because we are bad?
Was Jesus Bad?
No? Then why was he killed?
I wouldn't kill him.
Did God kill him?
God let his Son die?
Why?
Do you see where this is going?
We keep returning to “why?”
because it makes no sense...
When I think
about that little boy that I feel that I am
in these moments,
when I ask this,
I find it rather strange
to be asking this...
Because
I always, for so long, understood these things.
I was taught the answers
and they seemed to make sense to me...
the answers made sense to the boy that I was
going back as far as I can remember...
I don't know what the 5 year old boy
that I was understood...
but then into my adulthood
and for years,
it made sense.
Now and of late,
I keep thinking
“that doesn't make sense,”
and I want to add,
“I do want to understand
and believe.”
March 26, 2009
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