The Christian calendar marks the beginning of Advent today, the 24 (though this year 25) days before the Christmas season. This season is a season of waiting, of preparing, of marking our days with intention, so that we can fully receive the Light on the 25th of December.

This year seems like we’ve been waiting all year. With the pandemic in full swing and still taking lives, what exactly are we all waiting for? We might be waiting for the pandemic to end; to at least be under control; for there to be enough money to be distributed to our communities; we are waiting. We are all waiting for there to be no suffering as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, but until the Light arrives, we wait.

I don’t know if the Light will arrive in the same way this year. What is it that we are hoping for? I know we are all collectively spent and impatient with what is next. For me to ask you to wait for a better future is not hospitable. We are impatient and we want change, now. I want there to be something different than this new normal. I want to be able to go outside and not fret about contracting the virus. And, still, I wait.

Our collective becoming is now an orientation of waiting for what is next, but what is next will come as a surprise for all of us even as we sit in this ongoing perplexing environment of Covid.

May you find glimmers of Light, even as we wait, and may you be buoyed by hoping for what is to come.

Happy first day of Advent! We wait for the Light to meet us in strange and remarkable ways! May we be entangled in the waiting and buoyed by the imagination for what is to come!

Onward, -Dr. Robyn.