Photograph by Brian Wegman via Unsplash

Back in mid-September, I started getting in the Halloween mood. I’m not sure if it was the release of pumpkin flavors at Starbucks or that one house on a cul de sac that turns their whole front yard into a graveyard super early. Anyway, I’m in the mood…

I kept hoping for fall weather. It’s football season and it’s supposed to start being sweatshirt weather. Except instead it got hot again, really hot, enough that the first home game of the season the marching band didn’t even suit up for fear of heatstroke.

There are two major holidays in the fall prior to Advent. One is a marketing superstar and the other sits right before Black Friday. Sometimes as a pastor when I’m preparing for Advent and Christmas (yes, both have been part of planning meetings as far back as September) I think of them as small mountains past which I cannot see. I wait for Advent to sneak up on me as I suddenly gain a vantage point at mountain peak and look down into a valley of waiting.

I fear this Advent will be different. Overshadowing it lurks the anticipated fallout of the presidential election. By mid-November I am confident we’ll know the actual outcome of the election, if by outcome one means total number of votes counted. But I fear we may spend most of December in a dark valley of legal procedures and partisan bloviating. We may see much energy spent on lies and political machinations attempting to seize power despite the clear will of the people.

And that’s just the uncertainty of the election certification process. We will also all live under the uncertainty of how vastly different the two outcomes may be depending on who comes to take the White House.

Those are a lot of shadows, and it makes me wonder how we will in any way adequately observe Advent in the spirit it deserves. Yes, it’s a time of waiting and Messianic expectation; yes, it includes stories of times in which politics are equally fraught; and because Advent calendars have become so popular, even the Christmas shopping frenzy includes a few tools to mark the season.

But a part of me, really a big part, believes this year we will simply all be weathering Advent, praying it passes quickly, hoping to get to a (possibly) more secure January or steeling ourselves for the reality of an authoritarian second term.

During this time, it is unlikely to snow the way it used to, and regardless of who is elected we wonder if anyone anywhere will have the political will to actually take the right and urgent steps needed to slow climate change.

Perhaps every generation has had to weather Advent in this fashion, hoping to wring some sense of the holy, some fleeting joy out of anxious times. But this is our generation, and it is our time, and it is not easy.

Personally, I plan to throw myself into the two other holidays with gusto. We host an annual Halloween party at church we call Nightmare Before Gay Christmas. It’s an annual mini reunion for all the campers from summer Queer Camp. It’s fun to mock the evil forces in the world through costume and community for a night.

On All Saints I plan to truly remember the dead, the saints who have gone before, and do it well.

For Thanksgiving I want to learn some new recipes, and hopefully eat with some folks I don’t often get to see.

And then it will be Advent. I have been imagining Advent as a time during which I will hold my breath for a season.

But I do not want to just hold my breath. I’d prefer to breathe. So I’m investing some time now asking myself a very basic question: how do I want to live while the unknown is coming? I cannot control the weather, but I can weather it.

How do I plan to weather Advent?

I’m praying that question this fall, taking notes along the way. Here are some ideas for readers:

1) Do intentional reflection as you move into the fall season, navigating the complex blend of festive anticipation, political uncertainty, and spiritual preparation — balancing the unknown with the desire to stay present and find holiness amid anxiety.

2) Ground yourself in the other fall holidays, through community events like Halloween and meaningful traditions like All Saints and Thanksgiving. Those touchpoints might provide some of the grounding needed for Advent too.

3) As you reflect on how to live while the unknown approaches, it could be helpful to weave practices into Advent that remind you of your agency and hope, even in the midst of waiting. Perhaps this might be through communal prayer, moments of joy or rest, or creative expressions that help embody hope.

4) Ask yourself and then journal: What kinds of practices are you thinking of incorporating during Advent to help you not just hold your breath but live through it?