Happy Easter!

I've just finished a so-so novel called "Best Friends," having been drawn to the book by its title which is significantly better than the book turned out to be. The top cover blurb said, "A valentine to the staying power of women's friendships." That's all it took for me to part with my fourteen bucks. And spend 483 pages waiting for my Valentine. Thank you Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Anyhoo, Clare, the main character, an AIDS doctor, argues a couple of times in the book against Sister Mary Klein's belief that things always turn out okay, that things work for the greater good. Claire doesn't "have that kind of faith," believing herself a "realist" and that tragedy is worthless. I wouldn't argue that things always work out okay OR that tragedy is worthless. Things don't always work out okay. People get sick, people die. Terrible, ugly, wicked things happen. The story (as far as we can see) does not always have a happy, or even bearable, ending.
BUT.
But Easter. The redemption story, God reconciling the world to himself. It doesn't matter if you believe it, it's truth is neither propelled nor hindered by our acceptance, denial or even awareness of it. Without Easter, tragedy IS worthless. Pain and suffering, evil and death are not illusions, they are material realities, but realities that are subject to redemption. And therein lies hope. Easter is how God threw his arms around the world and promised, "It is going to be alright."