I must confess, it is really tempting to run headlong into the Christmas season this year. I mean, who doesn't want more light, more joy-filled music, more decorations, more "tidings of comfort and joy"? The world feels so heavy right now. There days are shorter, yet somehow each one seems to last forever. Every 24 hours is full of more Covid cases, more hospitalizations, and more death. The news cycle is an incessant metronome of infection numbers, overburdened systems, and political drama. And yet simultaneously, each day seems to be an almost exact carbon copy of the day before, and the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before . . . Yes, we all desire the "good news of great joy for all the people". I know I do. However, what I think I really need this year is Advent. I need the waiting. I need the liminal space of the almost but not yet. I need the anticipation of something new. I need it because that is exactly where I am living every s...