Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” aired on PBS over 30 years ago. I was one of the many people who counted the series as some of the best television I had ever seen. Burns’ documentary style has become familiar in the years since, even leading to naming conventions on video editing programmes.
I often think of an account in the series of an early battle in the American Civil War. As these things turn out, the battle took place right near where the surrender that brought the war to an end would be signed years later. At the time, though, most people had no idea how terrible the war would be.
This battle, known as “The First Battle of Bull Run” (in the south, “The Battle of First Manassas”) and by the nickname, “The Picnic Battle”, has become a symbol for how we so often fail to anticipate how long and difficult the days and months ahead may be. There had been voices, leading up to the outbreak of war between the north and the south in the United States, that declared if a war started it would be swift and short. One politician famously declared that he himself would wipe up any blood that was spilled as it would be so little. In this spirit, spectators and onlookers actually showed up to watch this early battle, opera glasses and sandwiches in hand, expecting a kind of adventure. As things actually played out, almost 5,000 soldiers were killed in the battle, and in the chaos, fleeing civilians who had come out to watch were caught up with retreating and injured soldiers. The war would rage for years and there is valid argument today that the present political and cultural challenges in the United States are still an echo of that time.
In the words of Ken Burns:
The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places. More than 3 million Americans fought in it, and over 600,000 men, 2 percent of the population died in it. Huge fighting armies swept across American farms, burned American towns.
The Civil War
Ward, Burns, Burns
I raise this historical example to note the nature of our weariness. We are presently living in a difficult time that so many of us figured would be over by now. It is not. How have you felt these past few days as you have seen the pictures of empty arenas and closed businesses once again? It is not quite accurate to say that we feel just what we felt when things shut down in March 2020. Then, we had never seen anything like that in our lives. Now, it is happening again. We are reminded, by the ever present doctors on television, that we are in a much much better place than we were in March of 2020. We have vaccines now and vaccines work and the risk of hospitalization and death is so much lower for the vaccinated.
We will get out of this.
Just not yet.
Our weariness becomes heavier because we recall so recently thinking that this might be over so much sooner. I remember last year on this day, this shortest day of the year, writing with such hope that though the days were short, they were about to get longer. We were ready to see the light that was dawning. It’s harder to feel such hope when another wave of battle or another viral mutation keeps us in this unwanted context.
Weariness comes also from the recognition that what we are living has long ceased being an event and is instead becoming an era. Babies born at the beginning of the pandemic are nearing two years old now. Weariness sets in when it begins to become hard to look back to the beginning of a struggle as much as it is hard to see forward to the end.
And now, Christmas.
Preparing for Christmas can seem a bit of a ruse in a time of such weariness. Our respect and compassion for people who celebrate in the midst of uncertainty and loss grows at times like this.
Christmas comes exactly when we are weary.
This past Sunday, many Christian churches considered the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary and Mary’s response to the angel.
Her words ring with hope and pierce so many of our contemporary, present struggles.
Speaking of God Mary says:
He has brought down the mighty ones
and lifted up the humble
He has helped the weak to stand
and scattered all the prideful
And He has filled the hungry
and sent the rich away
To those who fear him he has shown
A never-ending mercy
From Mary's Song by Ordinary Time
Mary was speaking of things that had not yet happened as if they already had. Maybe they have still not happened. Have the proud really been scattered? Have the hungry really been filled with good things?
There is faith amidst weariness here. Though we can’t see the end of difficulty and though we are having a harder time seeing the beginning, some people are blessed with a faith that sees the goodness God has for the world, even in the darkness of present reality.
I ask you kindly to sing and sing and consider and sing again, the words of what is a favourite Christmas song for so many people. These words make greater sense this year. In past years for many people they may have referred in application to the weariness of the busy season or to personal and particular concern. Now they truly directly refer to a current worldwide struggle and to a weariness with which almost everyone in the world can identify:
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees.
O hear the angel voices.
O night divine.
O night that Christ was born.
Amen. And Merry Christmas!