Red Sox and Resurrection

I thought spring training was going to get away from me this year.  Baseball, that is.  In Lee County we have two major league teams, the Minnesota Twins and the Boston Red Sox, that hold their spring training camps here.  And I always get a chance to see my beloved Red Sox play at least once.  But this year proved a bit busier than usual in March, and I hadn't gotten to either park to see a game.  But, then, during the last week of play, a parishioner invited me to the last game of the spring season.  So, thanks to Phil, on March 31, just in the nick of time, I got to see Boston play the Twins.

They lost--and ended the spring training season well below  500.  For non-baseball fans, that means they lost more games than  the won.  But David Ortiz, the designated hitter for the Red Sox who is retiring this year, hit a home run.  And that redeemed the whole experience.  One home run from one very special player made the difference.  It turned what could have been a bit of a downer into a real joy!  I got to see David Ortiz hit his last home run in spring training!

As I pondered this bit of good fortune I realized life often works that day.  Life in general can be going to hell in a handbasket, as they say, when one person, one kind deed, can turn it all around,  And what had been a bad day can be made into a good one. 

Come to think of it, that's a good illustration for this Easter season, isn't it?  The disciples were having a very, very bad week, weren't they?  Betrayal, desertion, the death of their leader, the threat of Rome--it was all well below 500.  But then came the resurrection, and life got turned around.  And what had been a bad, bad week, got transformed into a whole new life for those disciples!