The Journal presents my weekly reflections on being a private, Catholic school principal during what promises to be a year filled with energy, excitement, challenges and possibilities…
As the days continue to grow longer, as the calendar page starts to turn to 2021, as we approach the celebration of Christmas, It is time to renew our hope.
It is about time for some hope.
As a Catholic, I have always looked forward to Advent. It is my favorite season of the year in the church calendar. As a child, I remember the days of Advent passing so slowly as the candles on the Advent Wreath burned ever so patiently towards Christmas.
I was not nearly as patient.
As an adult, it has increasingly seemed to be that the 4 weeks of Advent move forward more quickly each year and the interval from the first Sunday to Christmas is shortened with each passing year.
This pandemic year, time flows in different ways and at an odd pacing. Yet, I have found this Advent that the days are progressing relatively quickly and Christmas approaches with some haste. It will be a different Christmas, to be sure. Our family – my mother, my sisters and their spouses, my nieces and nephews (all of whom live in town) – has determined we will not hold our usual celebrations. We will not gather for our version of the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve nor come together in a large group on Christmas Day itself. This will be different. It will be okay. We will look forward to resuming those gatherings in the coming months when they are more advisable.
And we will live in hope.
Advent means many things to many people and each week of Advent has its own theme on which to reflect. For me, however, the first week’s theme has ever tended to be the one on which I fixate for the entirety of the season.
Hope.
If there was ever a context in which I have found the need for hope of the existential variety, it is this year – this pandemic season. For those of us in education, collaborating on decisions for our communities about next steps and phases of education and the manners in which we will proceed, hope is an essential component of our processes. I think that there have been larger tracts of time that I would like to acknowledge over the course of these past months that I have lost hold on hope. Advent reminds me to hold to it.
As the days continue to grow longer, as the calendar page starts to turn to 2021, as we approach the celebration of Christmas, It is time to renew our hope.
Advent increases our hope.
I have been released from quarantine following a negative test and the conclusion of the CDC mandated 10 days. It is good to be able to move about more freely, albeit carefully. Our school determined to remain in remote learning until 2021 and, while having the decision made was a relief, it is disappointing. I surely miss my colleagues and our students.
We do continue our weekly average of new cases at around 5…