The theme of the fourth week of Advent is love. Love is a funny thing – we love coffee, we love to travel, we love our cat… it is a word that we use for a lot of concepts. Love as taste, desire, or even lust. Love as affection or friendship.

Much love is self centered – I love how you make me feel, I love how doing that makes me feel, I love how good that smoked sardine on a crisp tastes. As good as these are, they fall short of the kind of love attached to this fourth week of Advent because they are conditional, if the feeling changes so does the love.

The love that we are encouraged to pursue is a choice, not a feeling. It is “choosing to care, and be committed.” It is unconditional. Unconditional love is not blind acceptance, it is caring and commitment that is not dependent on the other person. We so need this kind of love in our world and life.

This Advent-love does not act out of selfish ambition or personal promotion. It humbly values others above itself. It gives up itself for another, and it is not contingent on them returning love. What a world we would have if we all could strive for this kind of attitude toward each other.

This fourth week is the culmination of the first three weeks of Advent. The highest form of love never gives up hope for the people they love, never gives up on them. This love does all that it can to promote peace, even when that means giving up our own interests. This love seeks to share joy with the people around us.

I am convinced these are quite worthy aspirations, and equally impossible to fully achieve, yet if we are to keep hoping for others then we should never give up hope that we too can improve, that we can promote peace, and find joy.

So as one who avoids resolutions, I can at least ponder how I can promote hope, peace, and joy in the coming year to the people I do know and love.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas, full of friends, good food, and even a few moments to capture in your sketchbook.