We’re fortunate. Our family gets to celebrate Easter twice. I’m Roman Catholic, Maria is Greek Orthodox, and when our two Easters are on successive weekends, it’s ten straight days of good will among men and women I wish we could replicate year-round.
I don’t know if it’s Easter per se or the fact it coincides with springtime, but it seems a time during which we walk and act somewhat less burdened by the figurative crosses we normally bear the rest of the year. Our backs are straighter, our shoulders are squarer, our gait, sprightlier and our laughter, readier.
The prospect of relishing delicacies prepared strictly at Easter might have something to do with it. Which is why frequenting your favourite bakery is always a good idea for some Easter cheer. But there’s clearly something more — more transcending.
As much as Easter is very much a time for introspection, an acknowledgement and celebration of our essence within, it is often when I feel most connected to the world around me. And when I feel that connection reciprocated. We are bound to one another in some mysterious way, and the rush of dopamine at the slightest interaction between myself and a total stranger — a nod, a smile, an “after you” — any kind or selfless act that communicates that doing something for you matters to me further entrenches my faith in some cosmic energy that impels us to do good.
I suspect it’s what St. Paul means when he advocates being “subject to one another,” not in the simplistic sense of submission we often peddle it as, but in the spirit of the ripple effect of our intentions and actions. We have the power to turn even the most seemingly inconsequential deeds into unrehearsed shared moments that affirm we are in this together, the kind that fill you at the most unexpected times with joy at being alive.
Something, so much, to be grateful for as we awaken this Easter to one another and the connections we are gifted, like tradition wafting through the house on the wings of the holiday delicacies — the frittata, gote and ricotta cookies colouring the narrative of the moment risen from the past and alive to the future.