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How Bleak is Your Midwinter?
No matter what religion you connect with — including no religion at all — that phrase from a Christmas song rings true: midwinter does indeed feel bleak. And perhaps this year might feel bleaker than ever, with 2020 not exactly off to a great start for either these United States or indeed for the world. What is there to wish for, to aim for, to cite as a goal when we live in a country whose administration is doing everything it can to destroy civil liberties and the planet itself, to wage a war against poor people instead of against poverty?
I broke my arm recently and so have had more time than usual to think about this. To dwell on the disaster that was 2019. To think about my usual obsessive-compulsive list of What I Will Accomplish This Year. To wonder if there’s even a point to any of it.
I finally got out of bed and Googled “how to find hope in 2020,” only to see that most of the entries pointed to Joel Osteen and his merry band of evangelicals preaching that somehow Jesus and money are really totally compatible, and we all just need to attend these conferences and wealth will be ours for the asking. If it isn’t, we don’t have enough faith.
That should have gotten me more depressed, but in fact, it didn’t. It made me angry.
While my religion isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, it works for me. I think everyone’s…
