The weather forecast said we might get a few inches of snow by Tuesday morning but when I woke there was already 10 inches of snow on the ground and by the time it finished the totals were closer to 24 inches of snow.

And that’s just the way it is sometimes when you’re waiting for things to change and it seems like you’re amid a drought and then the floodgates open and the deluge is greater than what we’d planned for. Of course, that’s the good kind of outpouring, but sometimes it’s not so good. Covid-19 cases rise, businesses close, jobs are lost, savings are depleted, for the second time this year. We’d planned for five inches of snow but received twenty-four.

This moment feels like that. We enter the season of Advent on Sunday, four weeks of anticipating the birth of Christ. We will light a candle around the Advent wreath to mark each week. One for peace, hope, joy, and love.

Our bellies are likely still full of Thanksgiving dinner, but this Thanksgiving was very different for most of us. Many of us ate dinner alone this year to keep loved ones healthy and the pandemic at bay.

Many of us are planning for fewer presents under the Christmas tree because jobs are scarce, and budgets are tight.

And then there’s an election season which seems to have no end.

What we need is peace. What we long for is the nourishing balm of goodwill toward men.