"Happy Easter"…

Hello People of The Table. In the last couple of days I have had a number of people wish me “Happy Easter”. Not folks I know, just people I’ve interacted with in the process of going about my business day by day. It seems that Easter still has some cultural cache, even if it is a distant echo from the past (maybe like Christmas).

I’m intrigued by the “Happy” part of the greeting especially. The Easter season is a multi-faceted and nuanced one, best experienced fully if we don’t insist on cutting to the ending prematurely. If we censor the lament of Easter, we loose a lot of dynamic of the celebration. If Easter was a piece of music, leaving out the lament and only celebrating would be like only playing loud or louder – meaningless without the other dynamics of soft and softer.

So, this Thursday we will “celebrate” Good Friday, and set ourselves into the space of the last days of waiting for the feast of Easter. We will be engaging this part of the Easter story an experience – an immersion in music and imagery and reflection and participation that will take us deeper into the terrain of the what it means to gaze at the cross.

And then on Sunday morning we’ll feast – literally.

Details look like this:

Thursday – come early; say around 7:45. Mario will be open for business, as this is a weeknight. We’re not paying rent for this gathering, so come prepared to pay for your own coffee, tea, supper, libations – whatever you want can be ordered in the first part of our gathering. It will be, among other things, a chance to support Mario, who is generous to us in so many ways. Then we will get into what I described above. Anticipate a full evening – we’re planning to be done around 10 p.m. (If you can’t make it for the whole evening, come for what you can.)

Sunday – come early (9:00) for an Easter Breakfast with the community. If you’d like to, feel free to bring something to share with everyone; cinnamon buns, fruit, muffins, whatever. Nothing elaborate, but a chance to break the fast of Lent together and set the tone for our main gathering at 10:30, in which we will celebrate the risen Christ and the good gift of the feast of God’s love unleashed on our everyday lives.

Happy almost Easter to you all,

Tim