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 →

On December 21, 1844 Hans Christian Andersen published the “Little Fir Tree,” a rather depressing story of an evergreen tree that is never satisfied. As a young sapling he looks up at his full grown comrades and dreams of one day being as large as they. The sun and air and forest are beautiful but he takes no joy from them. When he grows older he hears a bird tell about the trees that are cut down in the fall and decorated by the people in the nearby village. The tree is very excited to think that he will one day be a Christmas tree too and once again ignores the blessings of his current state. When he has reached a good size, he is chopped down and taken to a nearby home where he is decorated and celebrated. Though he loves this moment of glory, he is still convinced that there will be more and that his situation will only get better. He has a rather rude awakening when Christmas is over and he is stored in the attic eventually to be chopped up for firewood. He recognizes too late that his happiest moments in life were those that he did not appreciate in the moment. It may not be the most chipper of Christmas stories but the story of this Christmas tree got me thinking about how I look at the Christmas season.

Christmas is all about anticipation. From the moment Thanksgiving dinner is over, it is nothing but Christmas. Stores and radio stations may start right after Halloween but that is because they have no concept of the proper order of things. But now is not the time for that tirade. Continue reading Make It Last All Year →

Planning for the future is an important part of life. My decisions today affect my day tomorrow, so I better look ahead to make sure I do what I need to. But by creating a plan for tomorrow, I also create an image of what I can expect tomorrow to look like. I create an expectation. My expectations may be based off past experience or from what I’ve heard or may be completely made up. No matter where they came from, my expectations trick me into thinking that I have control over the future and that is what makes them so dangerous.

Planning for the future is necessary for me to reach my goals to the best of my ability but what use do expectations serve in my life? What good is a predisposition that is based on information totally separate from the situations I look forward to? When I expect an event, I am deciding how I will react before having a chance to experience it. Not only does this take away from the experience itself but takes away some level of freedom in my reaction. If I have decided to be bored, I’m going to be a little bored even if the event is more fun than I expected. Continue reading What Do You Expect? →