FROM THE EDITOR: 'I Just Pray for a Place to Stay'
Christmas Day is for children; the season of Advent is for us all, be we religious or not. In the year to come, the lessons of Advent — principally, waiting — will be more important than we may know
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
We stand this Christmas season at a crossroads, knowing that the 2025 holiday season will be celebrated in a decidedly different society.
What that season and its society will look like, however, is at this point largely unknown.
In the wake of the recent November election, half our community is optimistically anticipating a revitalization of the American economy and return to a “golden age,” while the other half is apprehensive about deteriorating democratic norms and the rollback of individual rights.
In a community as sharply divided as is Washington, where we and the country will be in December 2025 is well-nigh impossible to predict.
Also unknown is the direction Virginia will be moving next holiday season. Will Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s popularity be strong enough to carry Winsome Sears to the governor’s mansion? Despite his strong approval ratings, his coattails have been of little benefit to his fellow Republicans, who lost both houses in the General Assembly in 2023. That could mean trouble for Sears, whose legislative achievements are thin, leaving her a minimal track record to run on.
Or will Abigail Spanberger continue to build upon her success as an across-the-aisle legislator and put Virginia on a more-progressive path? She leaves Washington with major legislative victories and the respect of both Democrats and more-moderately oriented Republicans.
In a sharply divided state, it’s up for grabs.
And here in the 540, much remains to decided. Will the rollback of the conservatives in Spotsylvania serving on the School Board continue? Will the scandal that roiled the Stafford Board of Supervisors cost those closest to the events their seats? And will the pro-density, pro-data center City Council in Fredericksburg hold its supermajority, or lose ground to a group of citizens vocal about their frustrations?
These issues matter.
But for more people than too many of us care to think about, their struggles this holiday season are trained more on tomorrow, than on the next holiday season.
Rosa, who asked we not use her last name, and her grandson, of whom she has custody, are spending this holiday with a neighbor. The two were evicted from their house this year.
They can’t stay much longer with the neighbor, and Rosa is concerned about where to turn next. She’s hoping to have enough money to secure a room at an extended-stay hotel, but that’s not a done deal.
“I talk to god every day,” she tells the Advance, “because that’s where my strength comes from.”
Her hope for the new year is simple: “I just pray for a place to stay.”
Her grandson, by contrast, is still too young to fully understand what is going on. He feels safe with Rosa, and area charities have seen to it that he has a wonderful Christmas morning.
The weight of it all falls heavily on Rosa.
There are days, she says, she wants to give up. “But then,” she added, “what happens [to my grandson]?”
Joanne, another senior who spoke with the Advance, isn’t facing Rosa’s challenges, but faces the holidays alone.
“I’m the only person left in my family,” she says. “I’m by myself.”
Like Rosa, local nonprofit groups support Joanna with meals and a few presents, and for these she is grateful. But they do not make or break her season.
As a child, her family didn’t celebrate the holidays with trees and presents. Her father worked for the State Department and she often spent the holidays overseas with him. “We would follow the traditions of the country we were in,” she said.
Now, as then, she leans on faith. And that is enough.
“I’m very satisfied with how I will spend my holidays.”
A Season of Waiting
Christmas Day is for children; but the power of the Christmas season is found in Advent — the lessons of which one need not have faith to appreciate and learn from.
For Christians, Advent is the five-week period of waiting leading up to Christmas. The waiting, and the learning that comes with it, are what Christians are to embrace.
Few captured that better than Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a celebrated German theologian who was one of the leaders of the Confessing Church. Formed in 1934 by moderate Protestants concerned with German evangelicals who embraced Nazism, the church came under the scrutiny of the Nazis, and by 1938 they had banned Bonhoeffer from Berlin. In 1940, they banned him from public speaking.
In 1943, Bonhoeffer was arrested. He would never leave prison, being executed by hanging on April 9, 1945, at Flossenbürg. The camp was liberated 14 days later.
The small book Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christmas Sermons records many of his Advent writings. None more poignant than the letter he sent to his fiancé, Maria van Wedemeyer, on December 19, 1944 — his final season of Advent.
Trying to reassure Wedemeyer and his other family members, who were increasingly concerned about his health — both physical and mental — as well as his safety, Bonhoeffer wrote:
The old children’s song about the angels says, “two to cover me, two to wake me,” and we grown-ups are no less in need than children of preservation, night and morning, by kindly, unseen powers. So you mustn’t think I’m unhappy. Anyway, what do happiness and unhappiness mean? They depend so little on circumstances and so much more on what goes on inside us.
Commentators and historians have long noted that it was during this period — when Bonhoeffer was imprisoned in the very restrictive environment of Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse (early incarcerations at Tegal, while not pleasant, were less austere) — that Bonhoeffer found peace within himself about the events in the wider world, and within his own life.
It can take the darkest moments to help us appreciate with clarity what matters. Such is the larger story of Christmas.
What Goes on Inside
The challenges before us all are real.
For Rosa and Joanna, what is happening within themselves is all they have to hold on to this Christmas. And their worries are driven more by what comes tomorrow, or next week, than what comes next holiday season. And in this, they have found strength beyond what most of us know.
For those of us whose worries are not as immediate as Rosa’s and Joanna’s, our fears are not based upon where we will sleep next week, but what struggles we will face next year. Our challenge is not daily battling loneliness, but daily learning to live with those we interact and disagree.
This holiday season, we would do well to remember the lesson that Bonhoeffer learned in his final days. That our happiness — both personally, and in our dealings with the larger world — depends less on circumstances than on what goes on inside ourselves.
We stand this Christmas season at a crossroads. What all our lives in 2025 will look like are unknown, but we do know that it will be a decidedly different society.
Today is a time to look within, and come to terms with what is happening in the inner recesses of our being.
Regardless where society is next holiday season, how we come to terms with our inner selves now will determine whether in the year to come we are part of the solution to whatever problems we face, or part of the problem that has brought us to this crossroads.
May we all find happiness and strength within this Christmas season, and may we use it to strengthen those around us.
There are many exceptional nonprofit organizations that are assisting the growing number of people in our community who are struggling with basic needs, such as housing, food, and clothing. Please consider committing both time and money this coming year to Hope House, Healthy Generations, and the Fredericksburg Regional Food Bank.
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Thank you for this beautiful column. One thing I've learned this year is that each of us has a role in shaping the present and the future. As one who faces 2025 with considerable trepidation about where our society will be next year, I remind myself, it is not the passive voice that I should embrace, "Where will I/we be?" but rather the more active, "Where am I/we going?"
May we each step into 2025 knowing that yes, we can do our small part to determine that destination and may we all join again, wiser and older and hopefully just as merry, in this space next year. Thank you again, Martin!