Good Friday

I'm sitting outside of an Ozark coffee shop this morning, sipping an Ethiopian drip and hearing (but not really listening to) the traffic at a steadily busy intersection near Hwy 65. I am feeling a little weird about not having any real feelings nor emotions about it being Good Friday.

I can't say that I was ever heavily invested in emotions or feelings around Good Friday. However, there was always an awareness that it is a special day in Christianity. I don't have that same feeling about it anymore. Neither do I feel a great importance towards Easter or even Christmas.
The more I look at the life and the teachings of Jesus, the less likely I am to worship Jesus as God or as a god, and the more likely I am to become suspicious of religion and all of its trappings -- like Christmas and Easter.
I honestly don't think that Jesus would have wanted it this way.

I don't believe that Jesus ever wanted his life and teachings to be used to control and manipulate others. I do believe that his teachings are to change us and individuals and as a collective society. 
The -- remove the plank in your own eye before helping your brother with the speck in their eye -- is a pretty big clue that it's about fixing ourselves and not others.
And yet nearly all of Christianity is focused on the sins of everyone else and controlling/motivating people based on the fear of what fiery hell awaits those that don't bow down and worship an angry god.
On the one hand we have Sunday school stories about three Hebrew boys that stand up to an evil king that insists everybody bows to his statue or get thrown into the fiery furnace and on the other hand we a (supposedly) good God that does the exact same thing.

Religion isn't just weird.
It's totally effed up.

Whether you celebrate the weekend as the death and resurrection of Jesus or you're just in it for the candy -- I hope you have a good weekend.
And we can all make it a good Friday -- just by being kind to one another.

John