When the bonfire fell this past week, although nothing is confirmed, rumors are that the center pole cracked, causing the accident. Not only did the students lose their friends to this tragedy, they lost a part of their most cherished tradition. One that, even if continued, will be a reminder of this loss. A decision will be made later concerning the future of the bonfire.

There’s nothing like the sudden death of the young to punch a hole in our papier-mâché "reality."

• In a world where medical advances are announced daily and life expectancy is stretching like a rubber band . . .
• In a world where the economy has been so strong for so long that it’s calling into question the very idea of "economic cycles" . . .
• In a world where we have more ways to distract ourselves (Discman, Nintendo, satellite TV, on and on) than ever before . . .
• In that sort of a world, we can easily become insulated from what’s really real. The padding muffles the sounds, softens the edges. We are anesthetized.

Life is for real. This is the real thing. People don’t always get that, anymore. And then the young die suddenly.

At a time in my life when I was trying to make sense of suffering, I read a lot of books on the subject (tells you how desperate I was). The only thing I took away from all that reading with any lasting profit was the insight from a book by Peter Kreeft in which he compares human lives to fairy tales.

What would a fairy tale be without the giant, the witch, the dragon?, asks Kreeft. A tedious journey through a forest. No danger, yes. But also: No excitement. No glory at the end. A fairy tale needs the slash of the dragon and the slaying to make a good story.

To approach life as a fairy tale is not to escape from reality but to return to it. It’s to take down the padding from the walls. It’s to accept the risk and loss in life because they are needed to fill out our life story.

I want to draw my knife when someone smugly claims (as happens all too often) that events don’t fit together in any coherent way, don’t add up to anything. But then I comfort myself with the thought that it’s just a pose. Nobody’s really comfortable with senselessness. When the logs tumble, we all ask why.

I’m so sure that every life is a story-within-a-Story because I’ve read the most thrilling Fairy Tale of them all: the Bible (a book that has itself been abused as incoherent). In this Fairy Tale I’ve glimpsed the Author of all our fairy tales. And he is kind. And the Story he is weaving is good.

Because this Author exists and is active in all things, we can more easily bear the apparent senselessness of events, trusting that it is not a real senselessness. Everything in life—the gingerbread and the oven—contributes somehow to an overall Story, and the Story is (I repeat) good.

This calls for trust, the sort of trust that isn’t easy but doesn’t go unrewarded. And I’m not just talking about the hope of understanding the scary bits once we’ve reached story’s end. I’m also talking about the adventure of the forest path.

Just as approaching life as a fairy tale is not an escape from reality, neither is it childish; it is, in fact, the grownup thing to do. The courage rises in your breast and you find yourself standing taller, staring farther. The blue of the sky is bluer, the yellow of the daisy, yellower: Fuji-film vivid. You’re here, you’re now, and that’s okay. You try. You do. And you find yourself grinning goofily sometimes at the sheer thrill of really living.

Those who died when the tower of logs in College Station fell on them—were they more guilty than all the others living in America? No! But unless we believe that such a thing can have a meaning beyond our ken, we are left with balmless grief and hopeless meandering.