Resurrection, The Counter and Mickey Mouse Pancakes (or how we know it's Easter in Redford!)

Here we are...almost a month after Easter.
Seems longer than that actually, doesn't it?
Seems like Easter is already a distant memory -
pack away for another year.

Easter.  

It doesn’t get any bigger than Easter. 
The tomb is empty.  

New life – new possibilities – all unleashed upon the world.  
It's what we are supposed to be all about; 
there is a new world coming – and nothing can hold it back! 

But here we are.
Just a few weeks after all this hype and hoopla and life has...

well, life has pretty much gotten back to normal.  

Pretty much the same struggles.  

Pretty much the same routine.  

Pretty much life is just like it has always been...  

And it sometimes makes me wonder if the promises of Easter
aren’t just as empty as the tomb.

Still, at least we are in good company. 
Read John’s story and you will see what I mean.
It’s actually pretty funny.  

They are back to work.

Doing what they did before Jesus ever
showed up in the first place. 


Never mind the fact they just saw a real life dead-man-walking.  
Easter has come and gone, and now they are right back at it;
doing what they have always done.

They are fishing.

Nothing seems to have changed at all.  

And that's when it happens.  He's back.  
Right there on the shoreline of their lives.

And here is where it gets kind of weird.  

All this "up-from-the-grave-he-arose"
and all Jesus wants is to have breakfast.  

No, “Come on, fire up the copiers and lets get the word out!”  

No, “Come on boys! There's world to save – let's get out of here!”  

And no, "Let's get the dirty bastards who did this to us before they do it to us again!"

None of that!

 “Come, let’s have breakfast.”
That's all he has to say.

It was the Wednesday after Easter Sunday
and my 4-year-old son was insistent. 
(Imagine that – an insistent 4-year-old!) 

What he wanted was me.  That’s it.  Me. 
Time with me.  Just with me.
Leave mom and little brother at home.
We are talking father and son.  One-on-one.
He wanted what we call a “man-date.” 

But he was specific.  Very specific.  

He wanted the two of us to go to Frank’s Diner (Redford’s finest eatery!)

 

But there was a catch.


He wanted to sit "where all the daddies sit."


At the counter;
where the chairs spin
and his legs could dangle.


It's where the men meet.
It's where the township budget gets balanced.
Where the Tigers' starting lineup gets picked.
And the seven-day-forecast gets predicted.


The counter. 
We had to sit at the counter.

And one more thing;

we were going to have breakfast – for dinner. 

So, that's what we did.

Just the two of us.  

At the counter.  

Him with his Mickey Mouse pancakes.  

And me with my ham and cheese omelet.  

And we talked.  

Talked about important things.
Things like Superman and Hotwheels and how hard it is to count to one hundred.  

It was the best hour I have spent doing anything in a long, long time.  

It was maybe the closest I have ever felt to my kid.  

It was surely the clearest I have ever been about what it means to be a dad. 

And I was reminded.

Reminded of what was truly important.  

And you know what? It felt like – well, I guess it felt like Easter.