What's it doing outside? You might want to take a look.
If the weather forecast I'm looking at right now is accurate, it's either raining, sleeting, snowing or all of the above as you read this. If it isn't...well, just pretend it is.
Because in this year that's defied any semblance of logic or believability, what else would happen on Christmas week? How about sunny skies and fifty degree temperatures stepping aside for a single day of actual winter weather.
If you wake up to snow on the ground Friday, you won't be dreaming.
Would a snowy Christmas morning be the sign so many are looking for that there is hope for an end to the pandemic? Well certainly if it isn't many will be happy to pretend it is.
The pretenders among us might have missed the very real news that front line healthcare workers are being vaccinated across the country as we speak. Or some just discount information about professionals using advanced prevention techniques brought about by real science because they didn't like Mr. Sykes or whoever their sixth grade science teacher was.
Mine was Herbert 'Mackie' Gibson and he taught those of us who were listening pretty well.
I know many folks who weren't and they know me. For several years, whenever one told me they didn't believe in climate change or evolution or cold fusion or computers or the harms of tobacco I simply replied, "I know, I was in science class with you."
Now I'm not saying, by any means, that I'm smarter than these folks. I'm not. I just tend to believe the people who are smarter than me--the scientists, the doctors, the immunologists, the critical-care nurses--when they tell me what they observe and what keeps happening. I wish some of my old classmates would join me in listening to them instead of whoever it is they listen to.
Not that it matters.
None of what I believe or who I tend to believe matters on this day because I don't really care how or why someone has come to the conclusion that we may be turning the corner on a world-wide pandemic. As long as they have reason to hope, that's all I need.
Because hope, no matter where it springs, does ring eternal. Hope for a better today is what the Christmas season means to me. And the giving we are called to do this season builds upon hope, just as hopeful hearts reinforce our will to give.
So many of us have lost so much this year while somehow I have received blessings in 2020 I never could have imagined. I'll be entering a new year with a new job and everything I need in life. I couldn't wish for more and keep a clean conscience.
So on this Christmas Eve, what I wish is for a peaceful holiday and that everyone is filled with the hope and joy a snowy Christmas morning can bring.
And I sure hope those weather forecasters were right. If they weren't, I'll just pretend.