Comedy vs Tragedy

My oldest daughter has a keen interested in literature and books and authors and all things writing. And I love this! She often asks my opinion about authors or their books. We get into the most interesting discussions (for us, not the rest of the family – they hate it).

Last night I was describing the difference between a comedy and tragedy, in their classic usage. As I struggled to described it, I finally came up with a very simple explanation. All kinds of problems and complications happen in life. In a comedy these complications have a humorous spin and culminate in a marriage – they lived happily ever after. When reading or watching a tragedy, complications happen and they have devastating results and then people die. We were laughing at the over simplicity of my explanation.

Life is neither a comedy or a tragedy – it is both. We have moments of devastating events, we have lighter funny complications, we may live happily and we all die in the end.

Maybe we need to accept the end of our life, the inevitability of death, in order to live full productive and meaningful lives? In this way we can make the most of the moments now. We can care more, give more, love more, forgive more…

Luke 12: 25-26 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? 
Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?