There are billions of us crawling around on the surface of this planet. Hundreds of millions in our Fifty nations. Millions in our cities, thousands in our neighborhoods, communities, workplaces and congregations.
Christmas is a time of caring, of giving, of family and community ties and gatherings. But for many, it is a time of deep depression. They don’t have the things that make the holidays special. And it hurts. They need help – even if they don’t want help, even if they reject it. We need to make it our business to offer care, help, and more.
Even monster governments recognize that.
A few weeks back, in a letter to the force, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll encouraged soldiers to “just pick up” when someone calls to check on them because “we need each other.” In 2024, the Army lost 260 soldiers to suicide, Driscoll wrote. Soldiers aren’t getting the help they need, and signing letters of condolence “knowing we could have helped” is “heartbreaking,” he wrote.
From now through Jan. 15, Driscoll ordered leaders to “deliberately check in on every Soldier daily to see if they need help” to try to get ahead of the loneliness and isolation some might feel during the holidays. He also urged those who are struggling to seek help. “Seeking help is not weakness,” he wrote. “We want to pick you up, share your load and get you moving forward again.”
In other words, even while we “mind our own business” sometimes our business is to look out for others: to check in on them, to encourage them, comfort them, and give them the help we may not even know they need. Until we look and really see, and talk, and really listen,
The Price of Liberty 
Les Miserables – 21st Century, American style
Which is worse: a horrific sentence for a relatively minor crime, or being wrongly convicted of a crime? Horrible as a sentence of years in prison for, example, stealing a loaf of bread is? We suggest that wrongly being convicted is far, far worse. Either way, the long term penalty is one of the reasons that our English-derived, American justice system is supposed to be “innocent until proven guilty.” (Unlike the Continental system heralded by not just the monarchies as in Spain, Germany, and France, but adopted by the democratic systems which replaced the monarchies.
Although the protagonist of Les Miserables did commit a crime, the French justice system made his entire life miserable, just as the overall French government and its cruelties and tyranny made the general populace miserable.
We are in that situation today.
The George Floyd case tore America apart in 2020.
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