One week to Christmas

So, now it’s the third Sunday in Advent and one week to Christmas. Here in Malmoe, southern Sweden the temperatures rose a bit yesterday and the snow began to melt. There’s still snow on the ground, but it’s obvious that it’s a little warmer. The two photos that accompany this text I took two weeks ago on December 2d. ” Find your Malmoe Christmas” the text says, and below this piece you see some of lights that lit up the Gustav Adolf Square that day. I hope that you who read this will get some good days during Christmas, even if I know that many are stressed, some quarrel, drink too much, buy too many and expensive presents or spend the holidays in loneliness. However, we must never forget the thought behind the holidays and these coming days I intend to write more about the combined Christmas traditions. I will this coming week also write more about some dramatic December events in Medieval Swedish history, and about some good, modern integration issues as well.

Christmas is supposed to be about love, affection, kindness and the best things inside of us, and we have to do our best to remember that in humility. Since I live in Sweden it’s often very dark at this time of year and the lights therefore become essential for our well-being, partly to light up the actual darkness around us and improve our sight, but also to light up our inner souls and give us some happiness. The visual contrasts between darkness and lights often create magic and awesome effects when you want to make impressive pictures and I for one often play with these contrasts when I create. I think that there are so many beautiful things in our world and I can see the beauty in both small, ordinary things as well as in more bombastic experiences. We must never forget the good things that make our lifes worth living. Even if our lifes is a constant road of sad and happy events, of small and big conflicts, of misunderstandings, injustices and evil deeds it’s also combined with friendship, love, eroticism, kindness as well as other positive experiences and insights. We must therefore take the positive and good things as our most dominant parts of our lifes as we participate in the roller coaster of life and find constructive paths that lead us onwards. These insights are not new, but valid for every new human generation, and important for our survival. During the Viking era, more than 1000 years ago a poem said:
“Cattle die, kinsmen die, and you will die too. But I know one thing that never dies, the judgment over dead man”. I believe that we all have a responsibility to try and live as good lifes as possible, and do what we can to achieve positive goals. This is also what Christmas should be about. Let us all do our best, even if we’re imperfect.

Anders Moberg, December 16th 2012