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Dear OLG Community,
I saw a sign the other day on a local church that read “Advent: A season of hopeful longing”. It was dark-- I need glasses. I read it quickly and thought it said, “Advent: A season of hopeless longing”. I was taken aback and actually threw my car in reverse to read it again. Surely, it did not say such things. It did not. But it made me think. Advent for some may feel hopeless. When the darkness of the season sets in, when the joy abounds for all sorts of reasons, not just about the upcoming celebration of Jesus’ birth, I think about those who do not have things to celebrate. Those who spend holidays alone, those who are marginalized, experiencing homelessness, are homebound, or just find the holidays to be hard due to loss or loneliness. The weeks of Advent may in fact feel hopeless. As people of faith, I believe that when we celebrate Advent, we must find some way to remember those who don’t wait in excited longing-- those who struggle to see the light in the world around them and those who need others to help them to realize the love, joy, hope and peace that can be found in one another; the living examples of Christ in each one of us.
Charlie Brown was a guy who perhaps felt this “hopeless longing”. In Charlie Brown Christmas he just doesn’t get Christmas. When Linus shares what Christmas really is, this is perhaps one of my all-time favorite scenes from a Christmas movie because it’s simple. Yes, he reads the Gospel of Luke, and tells the story, but he makes Christ visible for Charlie Brown, and all the Peanuts characters. It’s not about the haves and the have nots, it’s not about the commercialism or the extravagance. It’s about the simple and the pure. Linus helps them all to see so plainly that Christmas and the season they are in throughout the movie (though it’s Christmas-y) is in fact Advent. Hopeful Longing. The “Charlie Brown Tree” is bare. It’s plain. It’s not fancy. It’s not extra. But it’s extraordinary because it’s wrapped in love. It lives because Charlie brown and the others believe in it. They believe in the peace, joy, hope and the love of the season. And after all, above all else, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”
I hope that it is filled with joy and light, and hopeful longing. For those who struggle this Christmas, allow others to be lights for you. Know that you are held and embraced by our community, and by God too who is with us in the darkness just as much as He is with us in the Light. Wishing you all a very blessed Christmas holiday season.
A sincere thank you to Parent Org for your beautiful Christmas staff party today. It was appreciated.
Also photoed above: 4th-8th Grade were trained today in Hands Only CPR and were taught about the use of AED machines. We are grateful that they had this opportunity, and though we hope they never need to use this lifesaving skill, we are so glad that the now have the skills to do so if they need to. Thank you Medic 2 for coming to teach our students!
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