Hi, I'm Gavin Bennett and this is the Birch Town Daily from Monday, July 20th.

There's a lot of stuff swirling around in our hearts and our heads these days.

We're carrying a lot.

Whether it's the global pandemic of COVID-19 and everything in our world and lives that

it's changed, or the other global pandemic of racial injustice and all the working and

reworking of systems and thought processes and grieving or more likely, it's some combination

of both.

Our hearts and our minds are chock full and fit to burst.

We're not sure if we can hold anymore.

Everything feels so heavy as it is.

What do we do?

Where do we go from here?

Many of us are spending a lot of time waiting.

I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a people of waiting, but not in the

passive way, not in the waiting for the world to change sort of way, but a people whose

job it is to keep watch with expectation for the horizon to shift, which makes me think

of Advent.

And yes, Advent is part of the Christmas season, but since everything about our world

is already upside down, I think it's probably okay to talk about Christmas for a sec.

Advent comes from the Latin word Adventus, which means the one who is on his way.

Or the one who is coming.

The Advent season is a mirrored reflection of, on one hand, Israel's anticipation of the

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