I believe that this Advent season has already begun with a heightened sense of waiting. It feels like our entire world is waiting, albeit for different things: while we, as Christians, wait for the coming of our Lord, our world waits for a COVID-19 vaccine.
We are waiting for the day when we can hug our loved ones again.
We are waiting for the day when healthcare workers can take a break and rest from the chaos and trauma they’re enduring.
We are waiting by the phone, waiting to hear if our mother or brother or aunt or neighbor came home from the ICU after their diagnosis of COVID-19 took a sharp turn for the worse.
We are waiting to return to our favorite restaurant without simply getting takeout.
We are waiting to go to that football game we usually attend with our kids.
We are waiting for the day when we can host choir rehearsal again.
We are waiting, we are waiting.
As Kate Basi discussed in last week’s episode, 2020 has cracked open our world and the things we expect within it. But is there a small sliver of positivity in the midst of this waiting? Can we use this time as space to truly center ourselves this Advent?
Today on the podcast we feature a replay from Dr. Tony Alonso. Tony Alonso is a theologian and composer whose work is animated by the diverse needs of the contemporary church. A Cuban-American Roman Catholic, Tony’s compositions embrace multicultural musical expressions and reflect a commitment to strong ritual song. He wrote the theme song for the 2020 LA Religious Education Congress, and one of his most recent projects, “Caminemos Con Jesús”, was recently nominated for a Latin Grammy award.
In the 2019 Raleigh Convention booklet, Tony described his following reflections as such, as it was a Key Change at the convention that year:
“Most of us struggle to take the time for silence, and not in a peripheral way, but in an intentional way that clears the clutter from within and opens a portal for the voice of God in our lives. We often hear about taking time for contemplation, but we rarely consider it, much less make it happen. Be inspired to build a stronger connection with God.”
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