We wish you a Merry Christmas!

I don't even know how I can justify the time it takes to do this post - there is music to rehearse for tonight's Christmas Eve Mass, personal preparations and a couple of phone calls to make - but I just couldn't not say "Merry, Holy Christmas" to the handful of people who reliably click by here.

Much like that first Christmas when the world was ostensibly at peace but in reality many hearts were troubled, our world finds itself with few major conflicts (a couple winding down) but a great deal of uncertainty about basic things: ethics and morality, economics and philosophies of governance.

We need our Messiah as much now as ever. And, as the saying goes, "Wise men still seek Him."

In a semi-related topic, we ran across a couple of articles today that touch upon the way we as individuals and as societies organize ourselves. What is truly important?

The first place I'd like to send you is Godspy.com where Stratford Caldecott opines on which really is the building block of a society: the individual or the family. He opts for the latter and thinks the rest of us will eventually catch on as we cope with economic disaster and attempt to rebuild. A couple of quotes and you can read the rest:

... the present worldwide disaster which, viewed positively, creates an opportunity for radical change. The possibility of change begins with the dawning realization that we have been wrong not just about the economy, but about ourselves. The decisions and policies that have led to the crisis of capitalism were founded on a false view of human nature.
...

In the real world, the basic unit of society is not the individual but the family, meaning the set of relationships out of which the individual is born or into which he marries. It is from within this set of relationships that the individual exercises what freedom he has, whether it be moral, economic or political.

A shift in philosophical view away from individualism would change everything. If the basic unit of society is understood to be the family instead of the individual, people cannot so easily be detached from the relationships in which they are embedded, including the natural environment on which they are dependent. In other words, if we adopt this person- and family-centered view, truth would come before choice, reality before desire, responsibility before rights. That would make us less easy to manipulate, herd and enslave.

I find his argument compelling, and not unlike my own musings of late.

The second article may well illustrated a practical demonstration of what he is saying. Lois Kindle, writing in the South Shore News & Tribune, tells of an extended family's successful farming adventure in central Florida. No quotes; read it for yourselves.

See you in a day or so.