The well-travelled passage in Divine Love and Wisdom comes to mind at this time of year: “Love consists in this, that its own should be another’s; to feel the joy of another as joy in oneself, that is loving” (47). Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. It’s especially fun now that I have three young kids to share it with. To watch the face of my baby as she stares and gasps at the lovely Christmas lights—that’s love. I’ve been looking forward to baking cookies, decorating the tree, preparing presents, and talking about the Christmas story with them.

Today I read the rest of DLW 47: the part that doesn’t get quoted nearly as often; the part that is more chilling than inspiring.

“But to feel one’s own joy in another and not the other’s joy in oneself is not loving; for this is loving self, while the former is loving the neighbor. These two kinds of love are diametrically opposed to each other. Either, it is true, conjoins; and to love one’s own, that is, oneself, in another does not seem to divide; but it does so effectually divide that so far as any one has loved another in this manner, so far he afterwards hates him. For such conjunction is by its own action gradually loosened, and then, in like measure, love is turned to hate.”

Continue reading Don’t Mess with My Christmas →

Fall is coming, and a hush falls over the neighborhood playground as children trickle back to school. My oldest is old enough for kindergarten. These days I read a lot about education, shoring up my reasons for keeping her out of full-time school this year.

One author worth reading is Carol Black. Black is a writer, filmmaker, parent, and education activist. Her essays are thought-provoking and exhausting — exhausting because they challenge me to make drastic changes to the ways I think and act.

In August, The Washington Post ran one of her articles, “What the modern world has forgotten about children and learning.” In it, she notes,

“[W]e speak of our familiar school experience almost as though it were an integral part of nature itself, a natural and essential part of human childhood, rather than the vast and extremely recent experiment in social engineering that it actually is.”

Continue reading Saving the WEIRD Child →

I am a mother of young children and wife of a pastor, and I’ve been thinking about spiritual community lately. While I value the truths unique to the New Church, I think it’s important to support the good spiritual practices my neighbors and I share. Belonging to a specific denomination can feel lonely, especially in an increasingly secular country and generation. Humans are hard-wired to find “us-them” distinctions, but I think mental re-wiring is good for me sometimes so that I can look on friends of other religions as fellow members of a “Church-capital-C.”

In this vein, I have two anecdotes to offer.
Continue reading Our Greater Spiritual Community →

Last week, I offered some thoughts on our obligation as (relatively) wealthy, educated women to those less fortunate. I wanted to make the point that we can effect change no matter our role—mother, accountant, bus driver, and so on—if we obey the Lord’s commandments in our daily work and practice charity with compassion and prudence. I wanted to share an interview with a woman who has done and is doing what she can for causes she cares about.

Claire, could you give me some background about yourself and your work?
Continue reading Interview with Claire Lama →