I WAS A BIT SURPRISED when Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series founds its way onto the most recent episode of Glee.  The last time the show tackled religion, in season two’s “Grilled Cheesus” episode, the storyline was meaty and challenging.  This time around, it looked like some weird throw-away moment used to dismiss religion.  And then this happened:

The scene takes place in an episode where a number of last season’s graduates return to take care of some broken relationships, some broken dreams, and some broken promises.  Some of the remaining students have joined what amounts to a Left Behind reading group, whose leader pulls a “prank” on one girl by having everyone disappear while she is in the bathroom.  Is it a shoe-horned and slightly forced moment?  Yes.  But does it convey a hard truth?  I think so.

Getting “left behind” is no easy thing, and many of us have had our share of being on both sides of it.  We leave high school, college, hometown, family.  We get left behind by loved ones taking new jobs, following a divine call, lost because of a broken body.  Abandonment for any reason is rarely an easy thing.  Human frailty compounds the experience.  I know it because I’ve been guilty of it, and that’s something I’ve had to work on over the years.

It’s always a little frustrating when Glee does something that right.  So many episodes seem like so much fluff, moving from one theme week to another.  But getting left behind sucks, and it can hurt.  And while we don’t need silly musical television shows to teach us this, it is good that they can occasionally remind us of it and, in turn, encourage us to try better the next time.