Opening Words from Sun. January 3 by Lance Finney
Happy New Year!
We’ve finally made it to 2021. There’s a lot that we could say about 2020, though there are some who think we shouldn’t.
And while I considered following Tyler Durden’s advice, I’m going to talk about it anyway.
It was a rough year. There’s a reason that this was one of the most popular ornament ideas of the year.
The main challenge of the year was, of course, COVID-19. The pandemic disrupted everything, from the relatively trivial consequences like forcing my family to cut our Spring Break trip short to the sobering reality of over a third of a million American lives lost (including some members of our Ethical Society community), everyone was affected. Jobs were lost or changed. Educations were upended. Government responses were weak and disconnected. Masks became a part of life, and so did mask-holes; the people who refused to wear them.
2020 gave us the election season – many months of arguing with family and friends and muting the TV during commercial breaks to avoid yet another political ad.
2020 also brought the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and a lot of police brutality in the weeks of protests that followed.
2020 was a rough year. But we have reasons for hope as we look into the new year:
- Multiple COVID-19 vaccines have been approved, and first responders and the most vulnerable have been getting their shots.
- The election is over, and (to my personal relief) the Presidency of Donald Trump is close to an end, and we will have an administration that will take COVID seriously.
- More Americans marched for Black Lives in 2020 than ever before.
So, everything’s going to be perfect? Well, no. COVID is still raging, and it will take months to get the vaccine to everyone who is willing to take it (I’m pretty far back in the line myself). While the party I personally support won some critical elections, they lost others. And the movements for Black Lives and Defund the Police still have a long way to go.
So, what does the new year really bring us? I don’t know. No one does. As Yogi Berra might have said, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
But whatever the new year brings us, we’ll still have each other for support, encouragement, celebration, and consoling. And maybe we’ll get to do some of that in person.
Happy New Year