Thanksgiving, Advent and the Pandemic

                                       Thanksgiving, Advent and the Pandemic

Why is it one always regrets change?  A new house, new city, new job?

And then there is the Covid-19 pandemic, and one readily wishes for change, for a lessening of contagion.

Things, not opportunities, were made to stay fixed.  Memories remain fixed; life does not stop;  one cannot change the past, but one can choose what to remember. One can think,”I grew during this time; grew in my relationship to another, to my faith, to my God.”

Advent and Thanksgiving always are close in time. We easily remember Thanksgiving as fond memories with family and friends surface swiftly to one’s mind.  Advent, not so much.  As children it is a time of waiting, thinking of gifts to give and receive, but putting to the back of one’s mind, the birth of Christ.  Parents try to focus attention on the real preparation, maybe by evening rosary, daily bible readings, building a crèche.

With a kaleidoscope colored glass is shaken up, changing sight into new beautiful colored shapes.

Pandemic trauma makes one think outside the box;  shaking up ones’s life into a different pattern.  

Our kaleidoscope of 2020 life events can be seen in new ways.  One  can choose to see this as a season of hope, hope that Christ’s coming signals new opportunities, new ways of connecting with self, family, our savior. Then Thanksgiving and Advent this year signals joy for loved ones here with us, happiness for time to spend in prayer, the crush of must-do’s reduced to “if we are able.”

                                    A time to search for the Lord,

                                    Nights spent in prayer, not play;

                        This is the new reality, new colored truths.

                                    A pause to grow, to discern, to hope-

                                   God’s hand resting upon the earth,

                         Signaling repentance to choose and grow.

                         Memory of Thanksgiving, Advent, 2020

                                    will be celebrated in darkness or light;

                         It will be our choice.