There are so many things to think about, wonder about, dream of or simply, profoundly contemplate… at Christmastime.  Modern society provides thousands of distractions to contemplative thought, even of religious thought.  It confuses young and old and even quite intelligent people, who, many of them, find comfort in overthrowing traditions and beliefs that, however jerkily, created pathways of progress and even enlightenment.  Enlightenment’s end will be realized when “woke” ideologies capture the last government.

Christmas takes place at the altar of God, like it or not.  Mankind is obligated to bring gifts of thanks to the Creator, gifts derived from multiplying what we have been given for a full year’s cycle of days and nights, pains and suffering, triumphs and failures, loves and losses, lives and deaths, babies and aged cadavers.  If we manage to not be destructively distracted, we have much to offer our Creator, and offer it we must.  This is not a new or even a “Christian” concept.  Most religious traditions include significant measures of time, “moons,” seasons and solstices.  The traditions that built our civilization caused the development of calendars that have a clear beginning and ending, recognized by everyone.  Those who understood the segments of time and lengths of daylight hours gained great influence.  As God and His prophets explained and taught spiritual laws, it was into the traditions of our incipient civilization that they fit them.  As much as the first day of a new year is meaningful about beginnings, plans and courage to attempt new things, the end of the year is important for tallying the results and expressing gratitude for the victories and challenges thereof. 

That there is believed to be a cycle of receiving and giving and of giving and receiving, all of which may contribute to a better destiny after one’s earthly life is finished, formed the basis of ethics, charity and hard work, and, it can be said, of honesty and personal responsibility.  Populations that share these concepts develop individual consciences and the greatest of all gifts: self-control.  This very capability is essential – indispensable – for the creation and maintenance of a personal relationship with God, God by any name, and, clearly, for the establishment of the democratic republic of the United States of America.

Many are alive today who, as socialists also do, believe that their purpose in life is to take as much advantage of society as possible.  They expect levels of wealth, comfort and licentious rights as though by magic.  Many don’t work or produce anything of useful value to others.  If they are in college due to signed loan contracts, they tend to agitate energetically for “the government” to absorb their debts, as if they who signed those contracts were magically absolved of a solemn promise.  It is an extraordinary expectation with literally no prior basis in law or social organization.  Such an outlook is the diametric opposite of accepting an annual opportunity to live, multiply and serve others, and laying the results on the altar at the conclusion of the annual cycle.  Education, parenting and religion have failed these people.

The American holiday, Thanksgiving, fits our founding philosophies perfectly.  As we approach the end of each year, we are reminded unceasingly that it is time to give thanks for the blessings of freedom and of our Constitutional governance.  Amongst the football, shopping, road-races and overeating, families and friends come together, let’s hope without conflict, where, even if not articulated, being thankful seeps in to the most unaware.  But, thankful to whom?

Some might think they are thanking the government… for the good fortune that has found them in the United States.  Yet the government spends most of its time limiting our freedom, not something to thank anyone for.  However, we do enjoy a good fraction of the freedom that was present at our founding and we should be thankful for that.  We still enjoy a measure of personal responsibility, the one ingredient in freedom that makes our personal choices meaningful as it makes our lives meaningful.  Government seems to be actively eliminating personal responsibility as though everything good or bad that happens is a social consequence, not a personal one.  That’s not what – or whom – we are thankful for, either.

Like love, hate or forgiveness, thankfulness is uniquely human.  So, too, is the ability to worship.  This combination of human attitudes and abilities is why socially sensitive civilizations exist.  Add to them the sense of sacrifice that spurs preparation for a better future for ourselves and for others, and some of the most sublime philosophies of social organization, economics and government can be understood.  The greatest advances of science and medicine would be impossible without certain attitudes, including sacrifice.  These are attitudes common to what we call, “human nature,” and which are fought against consistently by philosophies of what we call, “socialism.”

Humans have a further grant from, well, their creator… certainly not from any government.  We call it “free will” and it refers to the opportunity to choose from evil, which is to say, “away from evil.”  Clearly, God (I’ll use “God” – easier to type, you know) brought humans into being on a planet where “free will” would always be tested against the blandishments of evil.  Freedom will exist only so long as the young are taught about it and of it and, if truth be told, so long as God is worshipped.  No form of governance that denies those understandings is able to keep people out of tyranny.  For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, and hearts to maintain the courage of free will, I am thankful.

“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”  Frederick Douglass

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams