today, as you may know, is a very special day. i’ll give you a clue; it’s my favorite holiday. (no, not my birthday.) it’s easter!

eileen and i celebrated the occasion with our peeps (no, not the marshmallow ones) of the filipino-american association of greater atlanta. it was a beautiful day at the park, enjoying the simple pleasures of life: food, family, and violent mad dashes — ironically known as easter egg “hunts” — in which throngs of children battle to hoard from one another more jelly bean-filled plastic eggs than anyone could possibly eat.

in my mind, easter makes official the fact that spring has finally sprung. the colored eggs, the warming weather, the greening grass, and even the ankle-deep blanket of freshly fallen pollen are comforting signs of renewal — achooo!… and allergies. this easter many of us are struggling more than usual to find a silver lining on the horizon. it’s understandably easy this year to fixate on financial hardships and the uncertain future. (i mean, good grief — as if falling shares, rising temperatures and crooked politicians weren’t enough; now even pirates are sailin’ their way into the bad news. how many centuries of garbage do we have to deal with at once!?)

well, this may surprise you, but i think that is what makes easter such a great holiday. no, not the pirates. (they’re what make halloween great.) i mean the fact that our world — as full of color and warmth and chocolate as it may sometimes seem — is always full of terrible misery. too often, i’ve contributed to it. on easter, though, i remember the moment in history when God made it possible to free my soul from that misery: Jesus’ resurrection.

well, that doesn’t make everything peaches and cream. life is still tough — even tougher when i try living out a backward philosophy that promotes reckless love and self-denial. (believe me, that kinda thinkin’ won’t get you very far in a cut-throat economy! also not very good for inflating the ol’ ego, i might add.) still, i’m content to know that — while we’ll likely never see the end of winter in our world’s forecast — renewal is happening inside of me every day. i’d trade my jelly beans for that any day of the week.