The Winter Solstice

The Danish author Martinus (1890-1981) wrote Christmas letters for many years, which were sent to interested readers. In the violent and tense times we find ourselves in with constant wars and threats of war, Martinus' Christmas letter from 1956 may help bring light and clarity.

"The winter solstice is here. Just as we, in the northern latitudes, find ourselves in the darkness and cold of winter, so too are the people of Earth in a mental winter of darkness and cold. Just as snow and ice promote the principle of death in the realm of physical winter, so do egoism and hatred promote the principle of death in the realm of the mental winter epoch.

Earth's sunlit terrains, its blue sky, its luminous atmosphere, its golden morning hues, and its evening twilight tones, its overwhelming summer climate, its vegetable abundance and colourful splendour, its beautiful cities and villages, its thousands of human homes, its cultural achievements, and a multitude of other divine goods for human existence, this entire beautiful world is permeated by the death rattle and cries of pain of millions of people after bomb explosions and other hellish machines multiplying the deadly principle or the violation of the fifth commandment. It is no wonder that God has disappeared from the hearts of humanity in this trampled and forgotten paradise. But after every night comes day, and after every winter comes summer; this applies as much to the mental realm as to the physical. Is this not precisely the divine principle upon which the Christmas gospel's promise of a future peace and well-being toward humanity is based? - After every hatred comes love, after every enmity comes friendship. Just as light and warmth are the primary life forces of summer, so too is the mental light: neighbourly love—the primary light or sunshine of true life. Whoever does not have neighbourly love within themselves must still live in the cold shadow of life's winter zone, even if they physically appear in great position, wealth, and fame.

The entirety of the human situation and way of being is thus under the control of an eternal providence. God's spirit still hovers over the waters. It has long since begun to shine its divine wisdom into human hearts, just as it will now shine strongly into their minds. The presence of an eternal Deity in everything and everywhere, along with the immortality of living beings and love as the fundamental tone of the universe, is the solution to life's mystery and the only true form of science capable of leading humanity toward the lasting peace on Earth and well-being for humanity promised in the Christmas gospel. This great well-being will always be there, where the darkness and cold of war and ignorance have been removed from all human existence."

(Martinus, Christmas letter 1956)
Translated from Danish