Easter egg hunt

This Easter I assumed my two youngest grandsons, both taller than I am, would no longer expect the Easter egg hunt that traditionally followed lunch on Easter Sunday. I was wrong, so, somewhat reluctantly, I created a clue-driven hunt that would culminate in a largish Easter egg each.

Their expectations revolved around ten years of Easter eggs hunts in the unkempt outdoor space that passes for our garden, while mine was the need to write clues worthy of my family reputation as a clue- writer. And as I wrote I asked myself: What do eggs, chocolate ones at that, have to do with Jesus and the mysteriously unexpected event we know as the Resurrection? Expectations  that Jesus would be the one to lead the nation back into freedom had taken root in the imaginations of his followers.  

Easter and the weeks that follow are an appropriate time to reflect on the way expectations, the ones that we nurture and the ones that we assume, play such a large part in our lives. As Brene Brown says in Atlas of the Heart, ‘They paint a picture in our head of how things are going to be and how they’re going to look’.

 But unforeseen events and happenings like fires, flooding rain, earthquakes and heart attacks so often come out of the blue. Remember Covid? We didn’t anticipate the impact it would have on our lives. A by-line in the evening news tells of the death of a man – a father, a son, a loved friend, “went to work in the morning but, never got to go home that night”. The possibility of unexpected personal loss is always sobering.

I’ve read that whether we acknowledge it or not, each of us has an constantly refreshed list of expectations we have for ourselves, our children, the people next door, the government, the secondary school system, our doctor, the weather, our employer, and even God, tumble around our days and scramble their way through our night dreams. So many of those expectations end in disappointment.

You might tick all the boxes that enclose your application for a job that you have been assured ‘has your name written on it’, but someone else gets it. The kitchen in your ‘forever house’ turns out to be dark in the winter months, a longed-for baby is miscarried, Melbourne weather washes out plans for a family get-together, your soccer-mad grand-daughter doesn’t  get a place in the team.

Parents treasure expectations for their children. Today many elderly people struggle to understand why the religious upbringing they gave their children seems to have been devalued. Siblings who were brought up to love one another, don’t always. I have an expectation that people will read the words I write from my place on the edge. Sometimes they do, but more often they don’t.

Expectations are filled with possibility and it takes courage to face the hurt of letting go of something that you have valued, even though other eyes might view it as impractical, selfish, or maybe just not right at the time. Somewhere in those possibilities are the seeds of God’s loving expectations for you- and me.

Judith judith@judithscully.com.au

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