Multiple streams of disappointment berth at the shore of melancholia. Delivering misery and fatigue of the soul. All the sails have holes, the carriers have weak boards, the rowers are heavy laden and the passengers are altogether dispirited. They feel so beaten down that any new attempt to hope again is almost considered as a taboo. The heart has become sick because hope has been deferred too many times. And conditioning has slid in and modified the behaviour letting learned helplessness stride like a peacock on the bay.

When the wiseman wrote that hope deferred makes the heart sick, he was quick to add that when the desire or expectation is realized, it becomes a tree of life. A tree of life is but an imitation of the Tree of Life whose leaves are the healing of the nations. From all afflictions of melancholia and the many afflictions of the soul following steady and unbroken streams of disappointment.

This Christmas, may healing come to all who have experienced multiple streams of disappointment in the course of the year.