THE COLOR OF LOVE

Winds sing soft at night,
Stars blink in listening sky,
Christmas magic lives.



Have you noticed ...

Love?

Christmas is the season of compassionate love.

It is an endangered emotion. The world preys on the compassionate.

Yet, it endures.

What is the color of love?

On the streets of New Orleans, I saw that one of the colors of love was ... blood.

A man stood in front of his wife as she was suddenly attacked. She survived. He did not.

Calvary showed us the same color of love, and its seed was planted in a manger in Bethleham.

In the post-Katrina chaos in front of the Convention Center, I saw the color of love was ... tears.

In the early days of Katrina, medical assistance for the homeless was almost non-existent.

Lost in the midst of mass suffering, a mother held her dead baby, rocking back and forth.

Everyone was consumed by their own griefs. She sat alone on the concrete, ignored in the back of the crowd of survivors, each caught up in their own personal hells.

With no cell phone that worked, no words that would mean anything, I sat down beside her. After some minutes, I gently squeezed her arm, then her shoulders.

After a half hour of rocking in silent tears, she looked at me and husked, "Why?"

I said, "I asked the same question by the bedsides of my mother and my fiancee when they both died."

"No. I meant 'Why you stop and try to help a crying stranger?' Now, I know."

She went back to her rocking, and I was pulled away by the needs of my blood center, blinking back the tears and feeling so useless.

Love.

We need it. We need to receive it. We need to give it. The difference between the Red Sea and the Dead Sea is one both takes and gives. The other only takes.

Psychologist Robert Sternberg proposed a triangular theory of love

that suggests that there are three components of love:

intimacy, passion, and commitment.

Different combinations of these three components result in different types of love.

For example, a combination of intimacy and commitment results in compassionate love,

while a combination of passion and intimacy leads to passionate love.

According to Sternberg, relationships built on two or more elements are more enduring that those based upon a single component.

Sternberg uses the term consummate love to describe a combination of intimacy, passion, and commitment.

While this type of love is the strongest and most enduring, Sternberg suggests that this type of love is rare.

That is why Christmas is important: its message is that love came down to us so that we could share it.

And each year we watch movies, sing carols, and send cards, reinforcing the images of friendship, giving, joy, and the magic of selfless love.

No matter your faith, Christmas teaches us that it is possible for one day to look at one another with the thought of building up and not tearing down or taking advantage.

And if we can do that for one day, then why not try doing it each day for as long as we can?

What is your Christmas Star that guides you?

 “My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. 

Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?”
― Bob Hope

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