“Our finest hour” never describes a bright sunny morning with the birds singing, however fine such an hour.

I associate the phrase with the movie Apollo 13. The flight director said the astronauts’ perilous state after an explosion in space on the way to the moon “could be the worst disaster NASA’s ever experienced.”

His peer responded, “With all due respect, sir, I believe this is going to be our finest hour.” He helped make it so.

Winston Churchill said of the Battle of Britain, “if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.'” He helped make it so too.

“Our finest hour” describes finding our best and flourishing in the face of what seemed overwhelming disaster.

Did you make 2020 your finest hour?