The holiday season is a time for gathering with friends and family—just kidding. The 2020 holiday season is the season of staying home. Yes, it is terribly inconvenient. Yes, we miss our family and friends and the many traditions that fill these days. But staying home now means we’ll all be around next year. It’s literally what we have to do in order to help save lives. We care about being around next year, don’t we?
On Thursday of last week, the United States racked up over 231,000 new cases of COVID-19. Over 3,200 people died. Those are hideous numbers, not at all made better by the fact that Wednesday, the day before, was worse. Right now across the country, the 7-day moving average puts the number of new cases at 220,000. That’s 40,000 cases a day higher than it was on the day before Thanksgiving. The 7-day average for deaths is 2,600. That’s 900 more each day than on the day before Thanksgiving. The word for what the data is showing is a very high order of “bad.” We all have a right to be frustrated about what we cannot do right now, but we can stay home and stay safe. As our friends at Nike used to say, “Just do it.”
Have you heard of the Portuguese tradition called “Casa del Pombo?” That term is Portuguese for “House of the Dove.” It is also rendered “Casa de la Paloma” in Spanish. The dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit and also a symbol of hope. Many Portuguese families place an image of a dove on their front door or in a window at this time of year to express their hope in God’s good care. One of our hopes this year is that COVID-19 goes away … or at least that we rediscover our need to shield and protect one another from it. Another of our hopes is that vaccines will arrive soon for everyone and be effective. Yet another hope is that nurses, doctors, and all caregivers will be protected, that they will find strength to continue their important work, and that they will be appreciated for the heroic work they are doing every day.
