This morning the hypocrisy is strong upon me. I have had to confront the mother of my children, and give them the freedom to choose whom to spend Christmas morning with. As a consequence, my grandparents have had breakfast with three of their six grandchildren, with two arriving for lunch, and the final one in Canada.

I do not like interacting with my ex wife. But that is part of Christmas: my boys have another set of grandparents. I am sure they consider me unloving.

And yet… with young men you have to give some choices, and with foolishness you need to confront. Love is not feeling good all the time. In a time when as a society we tolerate error, living truthfully is not merely countercultural: it is subversive.

And those of us who are casualties of this epidemic of easy divorce need at this time to have grace, and keep our anger under control. Particularly when you are accused of not loving.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

(1 John 4:7-16 ESV)

Love here clearly is not romance. We are to be sexually bonded, in a less fallen world, to but one person: our spouse. We are supposed to be faithful to our vows, sexual revolution or no. Love here is the higher form — hoping for all, wanting the best from all, holding and encouraging one another into self improvement for the sake of Christ.

This cannot be about sex. The church is not a harem for the preacher, regardless of the desires for neotony and hypergamy hard wired into us. It has to be about becoming more ourselves, and less bound by our emotions and base instincts. It has to be about self control.

And for many of us, control is required at this time. So we choose the wiser words, to refrain from that which will hurt (and from alcohol where I am, as the blood alcohol levels for drinking are so low that one basically cannot drink and drive, and one has to drive today)

May you all have a Good Christmas. I’m praying for mere survival.