“Easter’s Spring is a newness for everyone. Whether gainfully employed, unemploye or retired – something new awaits each of us.

Pagan or Believer, this day has an impact on us all. This is a seasonal change and a religious reversal. Spring leans into summer and doubt leaps toward hope.

For those employed, their old tasks bring a new perspective or a different twist. If they’re able to see it, there’s a morsel of change in each minute of their work day. For those unemployed (like me) it’s, “Oh, it’s 2:10; no, now it’s 2:11; wrong again, it’s 2:12 p.m.” That cocktail adage, “It’s 5:00 somewhere” now begins at 4.

Easter hope. Hope is such a fluid word but its substance can see behind a cancer diagnosis or a priest’s endless days with two loving cats who wonder to themselves, “Why-Is-He-Still-Here?”

A wish is for the Packers and Brewers but hope touches depths without words. Jesus didn’t wish for the good of people to emerge, he died for the hope part.

For those retired, well, you’re on your own good luck. I have no idea how they do it.

The food of transition we are about to receive is the bounty of the bounty Jesus freely offered to us. Unfortunately, Jesus was wrong at the end with his final words, “It is finished.” A shared meal is a transition time from the completion of the past day toward a hope-filled tomorrow of challenges and rewards.

It’s only finished when this meal is enjoyed and savored by all present. It’s only finished when we complete the gifts, talents, and treasures that God entrusted us with to make even the darkest of a winter’s night a spring’s hope.

Let’s eat.