What's Tony Thinking

Advent Redux

The Advent season officially ended on December 24. Today marks the Second Sunday after Christmas and tenth of the twelve days of Christmas;

It still sort of feels like Advent,

A season of waiting.

Still waiting . . .

Waiting for the infernal shenanigans and delusional claims of election fraud to be over.

Waiting for Trump to finally slink off to Mar Lago.

Waiting for Biden/ Harris to officially get rolling.

Waiting for the vaccines to get to all the health care workers, the essential workers, the nursing homes and prisons, and then to us.

Waiting for seeing people in person.

Waiting to walk down the aisles of a grocery store without worrying and scurrying.

Waiting, yes, for the pandemic to be behind us.

Waiting to go hear live music in person again.

Waiting for the schools to re-open.

Waiting too, in what has so far been a very wet and grey winter here, to get outside more freely and frequently and exuberantly.

Waiting for the days to actually seem longer and a little brighter.

Waiting and hoping.

Hoping that Biden/ Harris will get a chance and that Joe will hang in there, calm at the wheel, when the going gets tough, as it most certainly will.

Hoping that we Americans will understand one another a little better, ease up on pre-emptively classifying everyone as “red” or “blue,” pay less heed to the extremes and work together to solve a few problems.

Hoping, with Pope Francis, that when the pandemic is over we won’t make “the worst response . . . to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism.”

Hoping that we will find ourselves smiling inside and out to be and to be together and recover some of life’s simpler blessings post-pandemic.

For now, Advent Redux. Waiting and hoping.