Planet Fitness, the real-life Average Joe’s, come-as-you-are establishment, beat every church sign I knew with its slogan, The World Judges, We Don’t.

In this moment, all eyes rest on this moment in our history. It’s my hope that we are both worthy of that weight and can show the rest of the country that we can hold all this in tension for the sake of something better.

The witness of Dorothy Day is furthered by a new graphic novel retelling of her life and work. The graphic novel provides a thoughtful and informative introduction to Day’s life and development of her staunchly faith-driven way of serving neighbors in need and questioning the inequities of social and economic systems.

I have been imagining this Advent as a time during which I will hold my breath for a season. But I do not want to just hold my breath. I’d prefer to breathe. So I’m investing some time now asking myself a very basic question: how do I want to live while the unknown is coming? I cannot control the weather, but I can weather it.

Both the secular and the religious desire a “natural” death. There are simply different definitions of what dying “naturally” entails in an age of modern medicine. Within the debate between faith and secular communities on euthanasia, there is perhaps more that connects us than divides us.