Monthly Archives: December 2018
Christmas is around the corner, the feast of love per se – or? All you need is love – a well-known song of the Beatles from July 1967 was written by John Lennon. Those who do not experience love, or who have been deprived of love for a long time, become mentally crippled and are physically harmed. We humans need, yes we live by and for, love.
„Everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.“ – the first letter of John tells us. Love/loving is – maybe now, first of all, a state that lets us immerse ourselves in a certain bliss. Love is a state of security, confidence, that gives security and protection. And it strikes sometimes very suddenly and with full force.
There it is all at once, that feeling of enjoyment, of affection, of “butterflies in the stomach”. – But that’s not the real love most of the time, because real love takes time and examination and it needs to grow. Often we have a very romantic idea of love. This is not surprising, because in the lyrics of songwriters and writers, in films, novels and plays love is almost always transfigured and presented as the highest of all feelings. Everything just seems to be about happiness and wellbeing, the “butterflies in the stomach” and the tender affection. The world is seen through pink glasses; everything is vain, bliss and sunshine. “And they all lived happily ever after,” it says at the end of the fairy tales. Continue reading
“Rejoice” – in Latin “Gaudete” – is the motto of the third Sunday of Advent. “Rejoice in the Lord always! I shall say it again: rejoice!” We can read this in the letter to the Philippians. On the Advent wreath, the pink candle is lit today.
“I feel like a million dollars and like to embrace the whole world!” – “I am bursting with joy!” Maybe, or hopefully, everyone knows the feeling of infinite joy that some event brings with it. It is a feeling that makes one hover above the ground, that produces “butterflies in the stomach”.
The Holy Scripture often speaks of joy. We can find more than 200 places in the Old Testament and over 100 in the New Testament. The Holy Scripture presents the joy of God as a source of power (“…, for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength! “, Neh 8,10b), which allows one to maintain one’s inner balance even in unpleasant situations. Joy is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Service to a neighbor may also give joy to the servant, for joy can be incredibly contagious. As an Asian saying goes, “Thousands of candles can be lit by the flame of one candle without their light getting weaker and joy does not decrease if it is shared.“ Continue reading
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Hope – is a confident inner alignment, coupled with a positive expectation. However, there is no real certainty as to whether or not this desired outcome will actually occur. Hope is the comprehensive emotional and often action-guiding orientation of the people on the future.
Thinking a little bit about these lines above, the idea arises that hope always occurs when there is dissatisfaction or uncertainty. Given the near-obvious threats to our actually wonderful Earth, this probably affects the majority of people. Whether they are affected by the onset of climate change because they are losing their land and home or they are worried about losing their jobs – both are the basis of their uncertainty. Whether the children can get no, or only a poor, education for their future, or their own country does no longer offer a future because of mismanagement and corruption or by warlike and permanent criminal acts. Whether the land was destroyed by natural disasters and was rebuilt only temporarily or not at all, or whether the human himself has dehydrated lakes with his actions, rivers became diverted, the land became destroyed and devastated by technics and pollution and was made useless for generations. We could easily enumerate many more reasons. However, you see, there are enough reasons for people to leave their homelands and venture on an uncertain and dangerous journey into the future. “Escape” and “migration” are present in many parts of the world of today, with all their by-products and effects. Continue reading