Easter Sunday

One of the great pleasures of city life is sitting in an open air restaurant and watching the world go by as you eat. Samalita's is at my corner, on First Avenue, and it bills itself as California Mexican, but it's really an eclectic menu.

My favorite thing on the menu is crabmeat guacamole which the server makes tableside. I don't think I've ever seen it anywhere else -- but if you like regular guacamole and like crabmeat, you'll love this combination.

I was hunting for a book earlier (which I couldn't find -- perhaps I loaned it out) in order to include an Easter message. I had seen Peter Gomes, who had been (and maybe still is) a chaplain at Harvard, on television and I was so impressed and intrigued by his spirituality that I bought a book of his sermons, which is an unlikely purchase for me as a lapsed church-goer.

Anyway, the Easter sermon in this book was about fear. He used the traditional story of Easter morning and pointed out that off all the things Jesus could have said to the women who first saw him alive again... On this momentous occasion that would influence the world for centuries to come, Gomes points out that the first words out of Jesus' mouth were, "Do not be afraid" and Gomes said that's the message we should take from Easter.

On New Age fronts, Louise Hay always says, "Stop scaring yourself" and boy, I'm good at that! I can easily conjure up the worst possible outcomes, the worst possible explanations,and the worst possible events. I am able to stop myself after a few seconds (ok, maybe after a minute or two) and realize that I wouldn't allow anyone around me to be this negative. Fear is really crippling so that's the message this lapsed Christian semi-New Age person is going to have for myself and pass along to you this Easter: Do not be afraid.