This Weary World

Last updated on: December 20, 2024 at 9:45 am by Melanie Springer Mock

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This Weary World 2024-12-19T15:45:48-08:00 Melanie Springer Mock

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For all of my vocational life, Advent season arrives just as another semester is concluding, and the run-up to Christmas always accompanies the run-down of my courses, with final exams and projects, last-minute meetings, and grading all the things. By the time I close the books on another semester, address any student complaints about grades, and finish projects I’ve put off, I’m wiped out, as are most of my teacher friends.

Advent is wound up in weariness for me, every single year. Yet this year, the world seems more weary than usual. People are tired: tired from the emotional labor that went into failed election campaigns. Tired of news cycles that perpetually normalize what isn’t normal. Tired of the divisiveness and chaos and hate. Tired of wars and rumors of wars.

Light Shining in Darkness

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I imagine for those living in places like Gaza or Syria or Ukraine, the weariness experienced is unspeakable, unnamable, putting to shame my petty complaints about grading essays and tracking down students who used AI to write their papers, probably because they too are tired. The relentless news about people doing horrible things to fellow image-bearers of God is exhausting, but nowhere near as much as it is for those who have had horrible things done to them, sometimes in the very name of God.

Since the election, news outlets have reported on the weariness of the product they deliver. In late November, The Washington Post suggested that people are turning off the news as a way to care for themselves, seemingly surprised that “people are doing something psychologically beneficial for a change.”

This week, The New York Times reported that politically-engaged folks are also tuning out of politics, a phenomena columnist Charles Blow opined was causing some degree of shame. His column, “Temporarily Disconnected from Politics? Feel no Guilt About It,” assures readers that checking out right now is fine, because so many are so weary. Those on the margins most impacted by President-elect Trump’s promised policies need to reserve their energy for the fights that are coming, but so too are those who need to fight policies on behalf of the marginalized.

Anecdotally, at least, the weary are shutting off their social media, deactivating accounts, and taking a break from persistent posting. They are turning back to reading. They are connecting with family and friends, and renewing their dedication to home communities, where effecting change is more obvious, perhaps more possible.

Advent feels like a perfect time for our current weariness, while also reminding us that the world has always been weary. The Christmas carol “Oh Holy Night” announces that a “weary world rejoices” in the savior’s birth, telling us that Christ comes carrying the law of love and the gospel of peace. Written in 1848 by a Frenchman, the song captured the darkness that characterized that time—and ours—telling us that Christ breaks the chains of oppression, and that those who have been oppressed are actually our siblings, fellow inheritors of Christ’s love and liberation.

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