{"id":362,"date":"2010-04-11T23:21:33","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T05:21:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/?p=362"},"modified":"2010-04-11T23:21:33","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T05:21:33","slug":"everybunnys-welcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/2010\/04\/11\/everybunnys-welcome\/","title":{"rendered":"Everybunny’s Welcome"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think Elijah may have come to my Easter dinner.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As I understand, the Jewish faith teaches that at the celebration of the Passover an extra place setting is always set and the front door left open to welcome Elijah, or any other unexpected guests, to share their Seder meal.<\/p>\n

I was not so generous in my planning for Easter lunch.\u00a0 I had called each of my nieces and nephews to confirm that they were coming to my house to celebrate Easter with our family on Sunday, April 4 2010 at 12:30 p.m.\u00a0 I dyed 24 boiled eggs and bought seven\u00a0extra Easter baskets (three blue for the boys and\u00a0four red for the girls).\u00a0 The back of my closet was stuffed with at least 5 shopping bags full of Easter grass, assorted treats and chocolate bunnies.\u00a0 At the time I bought all this sugar and fluff I didn\u2019t think it was excessive. On Easter Sunday, however, as I lavished treats in the Easter baskets,\u00a0five for us and\u00a0seven for the guests,\u00a0and still had\u00a0two bags of candy unopened, I felt a bit gluttonous.\u00a0 My eyes had been bigger than my baskets.<\/p>\n

My husband said 10 people could fit comfortably around our table if we used both the leaves.\u00a0 We were expecting 12.\u00a0 The logistics of squeezing two more chairs around the table, filling and hiding 12 Easter baskets, all while blanching asparagus, was almost more than I could handle.\u00a0 12:30 arrived and the family began gathering. And then Elijah arrived.\u00a0 He came unexpected, unplanned, unaccounted for, and blessedly welcome.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t really Elijah.\u00a0 Her name was Kelsey.\u00a0 She is a good friend of my niece who was far away from home on Easter Sunday with nowhere to go and no family with which to celebrate Christ\u2019s resurrection.\u00a0 She was my 13th<\/sup> place setting hastily added to the table and my lucky 13th<\/sup> basket filled with those surplus bags of candy.<\/p>\n

When we sent everyone in search of Easter baskets, Kelsey tagged along with my niece seeming just happy to be here.\u00a0 When I asked if she\u2019d found her basket she admitted she hadn\u2019t been looking because she\u2019d assumed there wouldn\u2019t be a basket hidden for her.\u00a0 13th<\/sup> basket found she said, \u201cYou didn\u2019t even know I was coming.\u201d\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that what setting an extra place hoping for Elijah the prophet to come is a little bit about? It is sharing gifts of bounty and joy turning our hearts to our families both nuclear and human.<\/p>\n

She was my Elijah.\u00a0 Thirteen people sat down at my table, not unlike the Savior\u2019s last supper, to eat a very not kosher Easter lunch but we weren\u2019t too crowded.\u00a0 Somehow there\u2019s always room for more around the table.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think Elijah may have come to my Easter dinner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-familynews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esmithy.net\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}