Christmas Love 2020 Love. We're all here, at this perceived threshold of Eden, learning about love. Love’s Beginning: Initially we fall in love with a projected self-image of perfection and the projected self-image of perfection in the other. But that's not really love, that's Narcissus adoring his reflection on the lake's surface. Real love continually expands to include the messy, awkward, unpredictable, unresolved, lived experience of individuation within systems of disrupted belonging. Love’s Ripening: Our cultural preoccupation with the earliest stage of love is a kind of disconnection. It's visible in our branded self image on Instagram and how we are encouraged to shut down emotionally. It's visible in our schools and prison systems, in our corporate capitalism and politics, in how we treat those in need and how we deify beauty and youth. And unfortunately this superficiality of love can be most visible during the holiday season, where