Ours is an individual experience. What we see, feel, hear, taste, smell – it’s all subjective. We think we each see daylight or feel snow the same way, but do we really? Experiences are rated on scales – Scoville scale of heat (spiciness), Mohs hardness scale, lumens/lux/candela/footcandles indicating brightness – but can we really know if our bases are the same, if we’ve all got the same starting point?

We know from the Heavenly Doctrines for the New Church that light is about enlightenment and warmth is about love –

The sun in the spiritual world is pure love from Jehovah God, who is within that sun. The spiritual sun radiates heat and light. The essence of the heat it radiates is love, and the essence of the light is wisdom. That heat and that light have an effect on people’s wills and intellects. The heat affects the will; the light affects the intellect.
(True Christianity 75)

….Does someone who is more enlightened and living in more love experience a warmer, brighter summer day than another? Does someone who is struggling with her faith and living more selfishly experience a longer, colder winter? More seasonal affective disorder? It doesn’t seem so – it can be a brilliantly sunny day outside even when I’m feeling dark & crabby inwardly. I doubt that everyone in Canada experienced a severe dip in their spirituality alongside this winter’s cold snap …. or did they??

A desire to protect people from hurt seems to be a major goal of American culture right now. Public and private conversations about various hot topics are often shut down or sidestepped by those who don’t want to hurt anyone by expressing an opinion that someone might not like. Causing hurt seems to have become the ultimate evil, and protecting from hurt is always the best, most inspiring choice.

I’ve been reflecting on this anti-hurt approach to life, and I don’t think it actually works. In fact, I think it can cause worse hurt than it prevents. For a simple example on a physical level, would we refuse to let a doctor stitch up our child’s wound because the stitching would hurt? If we avoid the hurt of stitching, we will actually cause a far worse hurt as infection sets in. I think you can apply this metaphor on the emotional and spiritual level as well. It seems to me that at every level, there’s a difference between hurt that leads to healing and hurt that truly harms. There are times when it is definitely the right choice to prevent hurt, but there are times
when it is not.

We need hurt in order to survive, and we need hurt to grow. I heard a wonderful church service recently about the story of Jacob wrestling with God. The minister began by telling the kids about an interesting thing that happened many years ago when he lived in Arizona. Some scientists built a huge greenhouse, and one thing they did was to plant trees inside the greenhouse. They provided everything a tree needs to grow, and for some odd reason the trees were weak and easily fell over. At first, they couldn’t figure out why. Finally, they discovered that trees need the wind to blow against them as they grow, or else they are not strong enough to stay up when they get tall. He explained to the kids about the Lord lovingly wrestling with Jacob to provide him with the ability to grow stronger and better.

I know we are well into January, but I’d like to talk about New Year’s resolutions. 

I don’t know about you, but I always feel a lot of pressure around New Years. I feel like I’m supposed to come up with some grand goal and then be on the perfect path to achieving that goal as soon as January makes its midnight debut. In spite of the pressure, it’s tempting to make these glittering promises of self-improvement to myself, because such promises look and feel really good. They’re pretty, shiny pledges and I’m convinced I will look so good wearing them to the ball, or rather, as I watch the ball drop. But if I’m honest, I usually decide to pull a Cinderella and run out the door before the clock strikes twelve. Each retreating foot step seems to shriek: “Just kidding! I can’t handle any big life changes right now! I’m still recovering from Christmas! Even little changes feel huge these days! Maybe next year!” 

I’m not sharing this to be self-deprecating or to pooh-pooh New Year’s resolutions. They really seem to work for some people and that’s wonderful. But what I keep realizing is that we can’t plunge into a meaningful life shift without being ready. It doesn’t matter what time of year it is. We have to be truly ready. And the only way to get ready is to identify what we need spiritually. If we’re not prepared to make spiritual improvements, we won’t see any natural world results. For example, if we want to commit to eating better in the new year, we might first need to really face the fact that junk food has become a false god in our lives. It’s not enough to stock the fridge with celery. We must first acknowledging the spiritual issue at stake or we are setting ourselves up to trip up on the next powdered donut that crosses our path.

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”

Luke 2:8-11

Do you feel inspired by this quote, as I do? Then, when you look around you, do you feel discouraged by the loss of spiritual focus in the world, by the vast consumerism and Ho-Ho-Ho Santa-Clausness that appear to be driving the ship these days? Are you disheartened to see so many secular aspects of Christmas, what seems like everybody and their uncle celebrating Xmas but not Christmas? Sometimes, to devoted Christians, it can be outright depressing.

I’m here to buoy you up, to reassure you that all is not lost.

Santa Claus may not seem to have anything whatsoever to do with our Lord Jesus Christ, and he doesn’t, really……. however let’s consider Mr Claus’ nature: the spirit behind jolly ol’ Saint Nick is not one of meanness or greed, but about love and generosity! If people are enamoured with and inspired by Santa, – that isn’t my first choice, to be certain, but it sure could be a lot worse. I have to remind myself that the Lord doesn’t only come to people through the Christian Bible and the Writings for the New Church. Those are the means with which I’m most familiar, and they may be the truest form, but He has clearly told us that He comes to different people in different ways, in ways that suit them best.

In later times when the knowledge of correspondences had been wiped out, [people] began to worship the actual carvings as being themselves holy, being unaware that their ancestors had seen no holiness in them, merely regarding them as representing holy things in accordance with their correspondences. This was the origin of the idolatries which filled so many of the world’s kingdoms. In order to root out those idolatries, it happened by the Lord’s Divine Providence that a new religion should be founded adapted to suit the character of oriental peoples…. 

True Christian Religion 833

If some people simply cannot wrap their brains around the Jesus thing, it’s better that they embrace and emulate Santa than someone much worse, isn’t it? This is about the ‘church universal’, as I understand it, and I’ll bet Santa’s a part of it.

There are people who think that the Lord’s church exists only in the Christian world because only there is the Lord known and only there is the Word found. Still, there are a good many people who believe that the church of God is wider, spread out and scattered through all regions of the world, even among people who do not know about the Lord and do not have the Word. They say that it is not these people’s fault and that they cannot help being ignorant. It would fly in the face of God’s love and mercy if anyone were born for hell when we are all equally human.

Divine providence 325

The Lord takes what we know and turns it to good. Take Christmas lights as another example: we see a lot of those, strung along rooftops and around trees at this time of year, not to mention the elaborate light creations that fill some people’s yards. On the one hand, we may be put off by their gaudiness and heathenly nature; on the other, though, if we consider correspondences, we might remember that light corresponds to truth, and stars to knowledges of good and truth, particularly knowledge about the Lord (AE72). With that in mind, look again out your front window: we’re utterly surrounded by representations of truth!

I wish that everyone could appreciate the Lord Jesus as our Saviour, and the Writings tell us that folks are introduced to this truth upon entering the other world, but in the meantime, it seems that we need to make our peace with the world as it actually is. The mall may be grossly packed with exorbitantly-spending shoppers, but they (by and large) aren’t buying for themselves, they’re generously buying for others. Our Griswold-esque neighbours may have blown a fuse with all their powered decorations, but still, they’re celebrating Christmas. It seems that just about everybody does ‘celebrate Christmas’ in some form or other, certainly more than just Christians, and maybe that’s actually a good thing, after all.

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

luke 2:10-14