ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunsday, April 7, 1996 TAG: 9604050065
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: The Back Pew
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
What a burden it is being an optimist.
Most of the year, we have to fight off the obvious evidence that our optimism is misbegotten. Wars, massacres, terrorism, bombings, murders and natural disasters all work against us.
All too often it seems human nature defies a positive outlook on life. A look at the day's news always seems to reveal some original way for one human being to hurt another.
But during this season, we optimists get some payback for all that hard work during the rest of the year.
This is the time of year that we should notice that nearly every day's newspaper also includes at least one or two stories of the more sublime examples of human - and Mother - nature. Strangers help out the needy. Neighbors support neighbors. Inexplicable good fortune comes to innocents in danger.
For Christians and Jews, this time of Passover and Easter represents perhaps the most hopeful of all our holy days.
In Judaism, the story of the Israelites' liberation from bondage in Egypt is retold with the admonition that seder participants remember God's mighty redemptive work as if it were done for themselves, today.
In recalling the reason for eating unleavened bread, the Passover liturgy quotes Exodus: ``You shall tell your child on that day, `It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.'''
Christians, too, remember the sacrifice of Christ in the present tense in the celebration of the Eucharist or Holy Communion that many Easter celebrations include.
``Take, eat, this is my body. ... this is my blood of the covenant,'' the pastor intones, quoting from the Gospel of Matthew.
The power of these holy weeks lies in large part in our ability to consider the events they commemorate as if they were happening to us, personally, now.
While the two holidays are distinctive of each other, they share a common theme of recognition of the interaction of the divine with the human, of Creator with creation. And they share an urgent message of hope and optimism - that ``good,'' summed up in the will of God, will always prevail.
Actually, of course, even the nonreligious can find enough hope in springtime to transform the most battle-weary heart.
Blooming flowers, budding trees and growing grass conspire to force even the gloomiest curmudgeon to see some good in miscreant humankind.
In the rebirth of Passover and Easter and nature herself, we find reasons to go on with our own lives with a renewed sense of purpose, even joy.
I know there must have been dreary Easters in my lifetime, but I can't ever seem to remember any.
In my mind, the day is always brightly sunny, warm enough to be comfortable outside, clean, fresh, new.
Maybe that is what the promise of the season is really about. We are granted a new start in an atmosphere of contagious optimism.
Whether we are considering the liberating effects of religion or the tenuous sprouts of green life from seeds buried in the earth, we feel in spring that we are getting to begin life all over again.
And we are blessed with the promise of the season.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB