There are few more irritating sounds than rich people complaining about anything. Fair or not, it’s true. When it comes to what’s fair, the rich have beaten the odds by light years, so if no one listens to them moan, so what? They’re still rich.

Sometimes you have to look at things you took for granted your entire life and say; “Why?” Take this whole capitalism thing, roughly defined as private ownership of the means of production operating in a relatively unregulated free market. Profits are earned by ownership, wages paid to workers. Profits are either distributed to owners or reinvested in new technologies or industries. The eternal market forces of supply and demand determine product costs and workers’ wages. We have been told that upon this system the Western World and America in particular has grown fabulously wealthy.

You look around you, notice that in America the standard of living is pretty good, people aren’t starving to death and the nation has an impressive infrastructure. Our economy is the most powerful and successful in world history, and we have more rich people than any other nation and an incredibly large middle class who live in relative comfort and financial security. So you’re thinking, yeah, sure, capitalism is the bomb, we’ve got it made over here, especially when you look a huge regions of this world where people live in backward squalor; ignorant, diseased, illiterate, hungry and oppressed. You’re glad you are an American.

Then you start looking deeper into capitalism and you find out that in America today the richest 1% of the people own more wealth than the bottom 95% of Americans combined. You recall your history lessons and oral histories about sweat shops, company stores, robber barons, monopolies, strikes, labor wars, lockouts, child labor, blacklists and 12 hour work days. Maybe you’re thinking that ownership isn’t all that different from the royalty America overthrew in her Revolution in the 1770’s and 1780’s. Monarchs ran the entire world back then, and made no claims at all about their rule being fair or the wealth being equitably distributed.

They took the lion’s share of the wealth to build castles and buy jewels and funny clothes and have grand parties while the vast majority of humanity lived in appalling poverty while they worked themselves to death in service of a tiny minority who called themselves royalty. European royalty got educated, well fed, grandly housed and finely clothed while the masses were illiterate, hungry, sick and in rags. The Catholic Church and its later offshoots were the equally wealthy institutions that in partnership with royalty conspired to keep the peasants in backbreaking servitude their entire lives, refusing to teach them to read or learn the truth about the greater world around them.

The masses were ruled by fear, superstition and brute force. This went on for endless centuries until the British Colonies in North America said “Enough!” The leaders of the rebellion against the British Empire wrote the most profound political documents ever produced, guaranteeing universal human rights to the citizens of their new nation, their new kind of nation. No man would be king, or duke, earl or prince either, and the people would elect their own leaders. No religion would be enforced by this new nation, and it was forbidden for Church and State to collaborate on anything at all. Against all odds they succeeded and The United States of America was created.

The country was full of hard working people suddenly free of the stifling monarchs. Education caught on, enterprise was encouraged and the bountiful land and resources were exploited to their fullest, creating a land of opportunity that attracted millions and millions of immigrants. Like any group of people anywhere, some grew rich, and the chance to become wealthy was the calling card of this young nation. The fact that there were some states in America that held slaves bothered a lot of people, but not enough to do anything about it for about 80 years when it took a terrible civil war to put an end to that last barbaric vestige of monarchism.

Now all of America was free, and the Industrial Revolution was transforming the nation and the world. That’s when the new monarchists made their move, grabbing the majority of the wealth and building vast fortunes on the backs and the health of workers. Banks somehow took ownership of family farms and it soon seemed that every ordinary worker owed something to some wealthy institution. Miners were forced to live in company housing, shop at ridiculously overpriced company stores for all their needs and provide their own blasting caps and safety equipment out of what was left of their meager pay.

Thousands died and when they did their families were turned out into a cold world with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Either that or their very young male children were forced to take their places in the mines so the family did not perish. In urban industries, sweat shops, child labor, 7-day work weeks and unsafe working conditions killed thousands more as the robber barons built mansions, travelled in private railroad cars and held grand balls congratulating themselves on their status as self-made men. Attempts at collective bargaining for better wages and working conditions were met with lockouts, firings, clubs and rifles. A bloody labor war was fought right up until the height of the Great Depression, when the government finally decided to side with the workers and social change was slowly achieved, with every small increment of change fought tooth and nail by the ownership class.

These “Capitalists” figured that all wealth was rightfully theirs and they need only pay their workers enough to eat so that they were strong enough to labor to provide more wealth to ownership. There was hunger in America, the most bountiful country on the planet, right up until the 1960’s when another president sided with the poor and provided food stamps. Even though starvation was erased, poverty was not and since the late 60’s the segment of society whose wealth has grown the most is the one who needs it least, the richest 1% of Americans, the ownership class.

There is a reason why this class of wealthy individuals advertises and celebrates every instance of someone rising from poverty to wealth in America and that is because it is an incredibly rare occurrence. The class of people that were poor in the 1920’s, the 1930’s, the 1960’s or the 1990’s are overwhelmingly still poor. The class that was rich in those times are now richer than ever. The American Dream of rising from rags to riches remains just that, a dream, to 99% of Americans. To the elite 1%, depressions or recessions mean very little in terms of lifestyles.

Even in 2008 when 5 trillion dollars in wealth disappeared due to the greed and corruption of wealthy bankers, the super wealthy didn’t go broke. Even if some of them lost half their wealth, $50 million gets you every bit the lavish lifestyle that $100 million does. Or if someone who was worth a mere $10 million now has only $5 million, will anyone need to hold a fund raiser for them? As for the rest of us, we’re saddled with another set of royalty hogging nearly half the wealth of this nation of 303 million ”equal” citizens. We may say to ourselves that we are blessed to have our nice little houses and our cars and are sending our children to college, but we pay and pay and pay the ownership class dearly for these privileges every step of the way during our hardworking lives, and most of us are only a job loss, a disease or an accident away from losing everything we have worked for all our lives.

Our family farmers have been replaced by corporate agribusinesses who feed us less wholesome and nutritious processed food, our skilled factory workers have seen their jobs sold to the lowest overseas bidders. Our small businesses have been eliminated by giant corporate box stores paying less than subsistence wages. In the early 2000’s an administration hostile to America’s workers engineered the biggest heist ever with tax breaks to the super wealthy, transferring trillions of dollars from the pockets of the working classes to the wealthy, the largest peacetime transfer of wealth in history.

How exactly is capitalism different from monarchism? The wealthy robber barons who engineered the 2008 financial debacle that devastated so many ordinary Americans are still in power, still playing dangerous games of chance with the wealth of a nation while unemployment swells to well past danger levels. If ever we needed the government to befriend the working classes again, it is now. When the top 1% of our nation has more money than the bottom 95% of the people, we are a monarchy with no actual king, but no shortage of peasants. Capitalism is a rousing success for the ruling elite, an abysmal failure for the rest of us. So much for taking things for granted.

Life is a carnival. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, and children of all ages! Cotton candy, daredevils, jugglers and clowns! It’s show time.

Ah, mysteries and contradictions. Gives us all something to wonder about. Scratch our heads even, maybe send us to the library or the internet to investigate what’s up. Take that Twitter thing, where people get to annoy the crap out of their friends all day long sending them short messages informing them what they had for lunch, that they just sneezed or how much they think that fat lady on the bus weighs. The curious thing is that it is wildly popular, proving that there are at least 25 million people with far too much time on their hands. What’s really curious, though, is that they just raised another hundred million simoleans to “fund” their company, on top of the $55 million that they raised to start the Twitter company.

The people who sunk the 100 mil into Twitter say they their investment  means that the company is now worth a cool billion dollars. What? How that works exactly is a mystery. Of all their funding, Twitter has spent just $25 million, leaving $115 million. And they have taken in exactly zero dollars, since the Twitter service is free. Many industry experts say that there is no way for Twitter to ever make any money, and so far, so good, they haven’t earned a dime. Is this some sort of clever strategy? Throw so much money at a money-losing enterprise that people think it’s a good investment and then they sell the Twitter company to someone else or maybe go public and sell shares in the thing? To which the rest of us scratch our heads and say; “Good luck to you, sir!”

People generally like things to make sense when it comes to world events and business. Poets, painters, comics, actors and rock & rollers can get away with making very little sense, that’s part of the excitement and challenge of our various arts. Gives us something to think about, and sometimes forces us to look at things in a different way and provides us with unique insights into life and humanity. That’s what artists do. Political and business leaders, on the other hand, should be a little more down to earth, what with them being engaged in very serious activities and all. When all the bankers went nuts last year and made 5 trillion dollars disappear like they were a bunch of Houdinis and David Copperfields, few of us were amused, and any insights we gained were pretty negative, to say the least.

The whole world was plunged into a dangerous recession and many small investors were ruined, those who could least afford it, especially those older people who lost their retirement nest eggs. What came over these titans of the finance industry? Why did they decide to cheat, lie and steal? They were already very wealthy and their businesses were the closest thing to the Golden Goose that could be imagined. They made tremendous profits for many generations and provided their children the opportunity to join their executive club and make their own fortunes when their time came.

Which of them popularized the notion that regular banking and wise investing was too boring and the time had come to have some real fun with everybody else’s dough? If their hare-brained schemes hadn’t blown up in all our faces nobody would today be questioning their obscene salaries and outrageous bonuses. All they had to do was keep doing what bankers have always done, keep an eye on everyone’s dough and don’t take any crazy chances. Maybe they took their cue from President Bush The Younger, who acted like the opposite of a president, doing crazy things that made no sense at all and acting like a real jerk all the time. Couldn’t even put two coherent sentences together. Very unpresidential.

Funny thing is, the country got used to having a real crude rube without any brains at all as its head of state and elected him to a second term. And that was after he invaded the wrong country (!) in response to America getting attacked. That was a pretty crazy turn of events. Maybe the bankers noticed this stuff, maybe said to themselves, “Saaay, maybe we can get in on some of that crazy dumb guy action!” And then they started packaging tons and tons worthless mortgages they should never have written in the first place into obscenely high priced bonds and sold them as the best thing since gold bouillon. That worked out so well for a while that they figured they’d just help themselves to huge bonuses out of their stockholders’ money to celebrate being real live rootin’ tootin’ outlaw cowboys!

And so the rest of us once again were left scratching our heads and can’t help but notice that presidents and bank executives are not entertainers or artists at all, but people we expect to act with some dignity, intelligence, discretion and integrity. To make sense. Watching a president let a major city drown doesn’t qualify as performance art. Allowing him to conspire with the wealthy elite to transfer trillions of dollars from the working classes to the wealthy in his famous tax cut didn’t seem so amusing either. Getting mugged by your own government in a Robin Hood-in-reverse heist may be a thought-provoking variation on an old theme, but upon reflection wasn’t exactly a rewarding learning experience at all for the suddenly poorer poor.

Then the corporations noticed that there was very little regulation going on anymore, what with the Feds being obsessed with reading people’s e-mails and otherwise violating the Bill of Rights as well as trying to convince people that when Americans torture people it is not really torture because they do it in the American way. How that worked exactly was never satisfactorily explained, nor was the fact that most of the outlaw bankers kept their jobs when the bottom fell out of their crazy schemes.

Then a new president was elected, this Barack Obama guy, a real smart fellow who said he was going to do things differently and change a lot of stuff. Only it’s been nearly 10 months now and he hasn’t done much of anything with the overwhelming Congressional majority we just handed him except to reward the bankers for their stupidity and greed by bailing their asses out of trouble with trillions of our tax dollars. Now we’re really asking what’s up! Guantanamo prison is still open for business, our troops are still in Iraq, our cars are all still basically lousy mileage clunkers and will be for years to come and Osama bin Laden is enjoying a thriving video career while we prop up a doomed democracy in Medieval Afghanistan.

Not only that, he’s letting Congress decide what to include in his big health care bill. That ought to be interesting, as in tragic, confusing and unworkable interesting. Didn’t Obama lead us to believe he had a solid plan? When you have a solid plan you don’t let the jugglers and clowns in the circus add their two cents worth. They’re jugglers and clowns, for God’s sake, and you’re supposed to be the damned ringmaster! Ah, mysteries and contradictions. Is it any wonder why we prefer our artists, actors and singers? At least they are straightforward about the fact they they don’t need to make a whole lot of sense to be effective. Poetic license, however, does not extend to presidents and executives, and they need to snap out of it pronto.

You are under no obligation to humor the willfully ignorant. You need not fight every battle, but for the important things, silence is complicity. Speak up!

Prevailing wisdom. Quite a concept, that. Sort of takes the wind out of every sail that would seek to find another course. Naturally a whole lot of prevailing wisdom is pretty sound, like the concept of right and wrong, the fact that the sky is blue and that gravity anchors us to the ground. Hard to argue with those, and pretty foolish too. But there are a whole bunch of other bits of accepted wisdom that aren’t so easily swallowed, and when something makes you choke, maybe you need to ask why. Is it just you, or are there others who doubt that corruption is inevitable? After all, most people you run across are not corrupt, so why is it accepted that a certain amount of corruption in public and private institutions is to be accepted and tacitly tolerated?

Indeed, when you think of personal corruption, do not politicians spring to mind? In America, who hasn’t railed against our Congress, our state assemblies and our local governments as being riddled with corrupt and power mad individuals? And when you look at other nations, like Mexico or any Middle Eastern nation, you realize that corruption in official circles is a way of life, as predictable an inevitable as the sunrise. And then you meet individual Mexicans and Middle Easterners and find them to be just fine, with no built-in corruption gene, and you start asking questions. Even in the so-called Communist nations where the theory is that everybody owns everything equally, you find corrupt leaders enriching themselves at the expense of the many, and you wonder why that is for these ideological Puritans.

Maybe you even meet an assemblyman from your home state and find out that he’s an honest person too, but someone forced to operate in a system long infested with back room deals and blatant self-interest. Maybe you wonder exactly how inevitable human corruption is, and whether the institutions we have set up have been flawed from the beginning, and that the conditions for temptation and corruption are inherent in these institutions. You notice that many of the various state assemblies have a very low pay scale for the representatives, and even the United States Congress and Senate are vastly underpaid positions for the relative demands and great responsibilities that go along with these important jobs.

Then you notice that these are the same men and women through whose hands flow the trillions and trillions of dollars that make up the public budgets of this large country, and the temptation comes into closer focus. A representative of any district not within commuting distance of the capitol by definition must maintain two homes and a minimum of two offices. Frequent travel between their home district and their place of work is not free, but necessary. Simply doing the math on what they earn and what they need to spend to do their jobs properly reveals quite a gap in dollars earned and dollars spent, a gap that must be filled somehow, and few of our elected representatives are independently wealthy.

So you figure that the mathematics of an inadequate salary combined with the proximity to the practically limitless resources of our public treasuries produces some skewed sort of algebra that encourages larceny. Now factor in wealthy business lobbies who ardently court these representatives with gifts, vacation trips, campaign donations and personal services in return for favorable legislation and The Corruption Equation begins to emerge a little more clearly. The system that was designed to give our citizens an independent voice in our government is flawed by money, in some cases too little and some far too much.

And we tolerate this state of affairs as the cost of doing the public business. Underpaid legislators with the same private needs as any other citizen, to earn a living to provide their families with food, shelter and an education, are practically forced to supplement their meager public salaries one way or another. And even if the way they supplement their income is completely legal, their power to affect legislatively whatever business they have chosen makes their outside incomes suspect. If a man or a woman holding public office gets involved in real estate, for example, they can potentially guarantee their success in that business by introducing and passing favorable zoning laws or tax breaks for their personal projects.

Many of us recall those toilet seats the Air Force bought for $500 apiece many years ago and can’t help but wonder how many public officials owned stock in that toilet seat company. Then there were the $200 hammers sold to the Pentagon, presumably to knock sense into one another’s thick skulls. Through such contradictions and tainted opportunities, many inherently corrupt people are now drawn to public service, seeking not an opportunity to serve and make a contribution to society, but a chance to get rich quick by any means at their disposal and serve only themselves.

Such men and women are naturals in this arena, and corrupting the process of government is one golden opportunity after another for some of these very skilled individuals. These are the people whose rise to prominence fuels the prevailing wisdom that corruption in inevitable. Every so often a few especially greedy and thuggish public servants are arrested and prosecuted and we tell ourselves that we are straightening things out, a foolish notion that ignores the legions of more subtle and deeply entrenched thieves on our public payrolls.

There is a reason that many men and women in public service emerge from the experience as wealthy individuals. The inside knowledge alone that is available to legislators represents a huge advantage in investment strategy, and the ability to pass laws to protect your personal investments is an asset none of their constituents enjoy. And that’s just the passive route to personal enrichment at the public expense. Imagine the opportunities for hard working thieves bent on amassing a fortune they could never have earned legitimately?

The Corruption Equation grows exponentially when publishers line up to hand a lot of these people millions of dollars to have someone else write a book about their “experiences” in public life, especially the disgraced, the arrested or otherwise exposed corrupt hacks who have spent a great deal of their working lives screwing up our political system. So even if you are so greedy and corrupt that you get caught and sent to jail for a couple of relaxing years in some Federal Minimum Security prison, you can still come away with a handsome profit.

How do we solve the Corruption Equation? Same way it was created, money. Pay our public representatives an excellent salary and demand excellent performance. Insist on transparency when it comes to their own personal financial dealings. If they wish that personal information to remain private, then fine, let them remain private citizens. No one is forced to run for office. To represent your fellow citizens in Congress, in any executive branch or state assembly is a unique privilege reserved for those who desire to make their nation a better place. There is a price to be paid for that privilege, and that is being a public figure and publishing your financial dealings.

Create an independent public agency at every level of state, local and federal government to monitor our public servants and the work that they do, an agency with no power at all to affect legislation, only to report to their employers, we the people, on the performance of our leaders. Those found wanting will be shown the door, to a prison cell if need be. And finally, take all the lobbyists out and shoot them down like dogs. No sense being completely reasonable here in what has become a completely unreasonable situation. The Corruption Equation just doesn’t add up.

People like their bankers to be cautious fuddy duddies and not wild men. Wild men have other functions in society other than handling everybody’s money and running the economy. Recent events have proven wild men stink at that.

It’s never too early too get your letter to Santa Claus sent. Early bird catches the worm and all that. Why wait until December when he’s inundated with millions of requests for Tickle Me Elmo dolls and iPhones? So the thinking here is that this year we get the drop on America’s retailers and Greeting Card companies that kick off Christmas season simultaneously with Halloween, and treat it with about the same reverence. So, in the spirit of modernism, let’s Tweet Santa our unreasonable demands this year. Outside of his mode of transportation, Santa Claus has always kept up with the latest technology. How else can he keep track of the exploding population? He’s all about the technology and cutting his work load.

He’s got that whole naughty and nice deal down a science these days, having subcontracted that work to a statistics company in India. This way he’s free to read all the e-mails and twitters he gets requesting this gift or that and can quickly download who’s deserving of an X Box and who gets the lump of coal. He actually encourages the use of Twitter due to its electronically enforced brevity, that 140 character limit. So, in the interest of science and in the spirit of Christmas, bobcrespo.com has collected some of the early Tweets to Santa Claus from some prominent people. An added bonus is that this early in the season he even has the time to reply to the tweets. Here goes:

Santa – Thanks for the huge bonus last year. Have already spent it and am hoping to get a bigger one this Xmas, LOL. – The Big Bank Dawg

Don’t hold your breath, Dawg. Looks like you’ll have to make due on your $3mil salary this year. The Mrs. is still PO’d about the millions in cash I gave away last season. – Santa

Dear Santa – You are my BFF and I just know you’ll get me a new reality show! The one I have really stinks. – Paris

Dear Paris – Not to be a spoil sport, my dear, but haven’t all your shows really stunk? Maybe the problem isn’t the show, kiddo. Just a thought. – Santa

Santafier – Hopin’ you could see your way clear to get me one of them nifty jet pilot costumes. Mr. Cheney took mine away when I was done Presidentiating. – Dubya

Dubya – You are still one dumb son-of-a-bitch and I’ll always regret my gift to you of the 2000 election. Lose my Twitter address. – Santa

Claus – Here’s what I want and it’s a fabulous idea: You and me, reality show: “Trump Vs. Claus.” We battle it out for who gets to sponsor Xmas. – The Donald

Dear The – I’ll have you for breakfast, pompous fool! You’re on! Only we call it “Claus Vs Trump.” – The Santa

Claus – Title change is a deal breaker. Everybody knows the Trump name represents quality and fabulousness. – The Donald

The – Get real, Perry Combover! I was a household name before you dreamt of your first trophy wife, who if you recall, was a Christmas present from yours truly! Deal’s off! – Claus

Claus – You’ll be hearing from my attorneys, fat man. – The Donald

Dear Chump – Bring ‘em on! You think Santa’s afraid of your lawyers? I’ll cross you all off my list! – The Claus

Dear Santa – I know this might not be up your alley, but can you maybe slow down my wife’s aging process? She’s starting to look like my Mom and my Twitter fans are getting creeped out. – Ashton Kutcher

Dear Ashton – Who told you to marry granny, you dope? I’m Santa Claus, not Jesus! Have you seen Mrs. Claus? Best I can do is a couple of rounds of Botox treatments or a splashy divorce, your call – Santa

Santa – I think I’ll go with the Botox deal. There’s always next Christmas for the divorce. – Ashton

Asston – You greedy young punk! Just for that I’m giving your wife a handsome young pool boy this year who adores older women. – Santa

Dear Santa – Thanks for the new liver. One drawback, though. It has no Aps, can only do regular liver functions. Can anything be done about that this Christmas? – Steve Jobs

Steve – What can be done is you can thank God, you arrogant buffoon! A man died to give you that liver! And this Christmas you’re getting some grown-up clothes. You can’t be a boy genius in blue jeans for 30 years. – Santa

Dear Santa – I don’t want anything for myself, only for you to rain hell fire on the liberals, the non-believing pagans and the Socialists who are staining my America. – Glen Beck

Dear Glen – You’re scaring me, boy. Seek help ASAP! – Santa

Santa – I was wondering if you could provide me with something to do, maybe spark another race riot ala Rodney King or something big like that. Since Obama got elected no one listens when I yell at white folks. – Jesse Jackson

Dear Jesse – Get over it. Santa has given you many charismatic and oratorical gifts over the years and you used them to divide instead of unite. I gave you Dr. King as a teacher, too, but you didn’t pay attention. This year it’s a bottle of Old Spice and a red tie like the rest of the retired Grandpas. – Santa

Infidel Dog – As a Muslim I do not believe in you, but can’t help but notice the many gifts you have bestowed upon America, or as we like to call it, The Great Satan. Can you give me the global voice I so deserve?  - Ayatollah Ali Khameini, Supreme Leader of Iran

Dear El Supremo – Sure, you can make world headlines in a flash if you admit there was a holocaust, stop trying to enslave your women and ditch the stonings and beheadings already. Maybe lose the Merlin the Magician robe too. – Santa

Infidel Dog – Take all my fun away, Pawn of Satan! I knew you were in league with the enemies of God. I shall issue a fatwah upon you! – Ali Khameini

El Supremo -  A fatwah? I’m already pretty fat, but go right ahead. The more of me, the merrier, as Mrs. Claus likes to say. My gift to you this Christmas will be a gift to the entire world. I will leave you unchanged so we all continue to be amused by your whacky antics. Jim Carey’s got nothing on you, Supremo, LOL! – Santa Claus, Supreme Leader of The North Pole

They say never talk to strangers. That explains all those damned wars we’ve been fighting forever. The better deal might be to find out what’s on the other guy’s mind before sending in the Marines.

Pretty much everybody loves somebody and something, usually lots of of somebodies and somethings. There’s the lovely wife or the handsome Dan husband, the wee ones, Mom and Dad of course, our siblings, boyfriends, girlfriends and cousins and aunts and uncles, our revered grannies and gramps if we’re lucky enough to still have them around, and dear friends too. Then there are the things we love, even though some people say you can’t love things, only people. Well, pish and tosh on that notion, because it’s just not true. Everyone loves music (even opera in some extreme cases! Go figure…), and lots of us love baseball, or cars, or gardening, chocolate (true love!), sailing, snow, stamp collecting, Scrabble, new clothes, books, movies, beaches, sunsets, shoes, Sponge Bob, painting, cooking, skipping rope, you name it. And pretty much everybody loves their country and their hometown, even some places the rest of us are less than enthusiastic about.

We’re lousy with love, we humans. Gets us in trouble sometimes, and losing it can be a real pain in the heart. It’s something we feel before we know what feelings are, before we can speak or walk, or read or dance the tango. Sometimes we love someone so much that it hurts, and our hearts ache with fullness. Sometimes we take our love for granted and let is go unspoken, but it is a powerful force just the same, and its removal or just the threat of its removal can be devastating. It is the tie that binds us one and al, the human glue that keeps us exasperating nut jobs from bopping one another over the head on a regular basis.

We can be annoying, every last one of us. After all, one of the biggest definitions of human is “imperfect,” as in I’m only human. Well, there’s nothing “only” about being a human being, as complex, mysterious and unpredictable a creature as ever walked God’s green. We even surprise ourselves often enough to realize that there’s more than meets the eye to people. There’s all that damned love, for one thing, seething and boiling inside even the mildest among us. It motivates our every action and informs every life. Our best memories are tangled images of love and the joy of sharing it with our special people at very special times.

When you examine these memories closely, however, as often than not the times and events weren’t so special at all, just regular times doing regular stuff. What made these memories stand out was the love for the special people, a love that is still as fresh and tangible as the day the memory was created and deposited in our personal data banks forever. Who can forget the love of a child for his or her best best friend? Or what we call our “first love,” the romantic kind? The truth is that our hearts had been rehearsing for that day since we were born, pouring love all over all kinds of people and things and activities, and getting showered with love in return.

There was once a guy who pointed this out to us, a carpenter’s boy from an obscure corner of the Roman Empire and a Jew by birth. He made the outlandish claims that love was the greatest of God’s commandments, and that love would solve mankind’s problems. He was a real stickler for love, and  travelled around his home country teaching people all kinds of lessons about love and how it was the universal thread that binds all of humanity together. The times in which he lived were pretty violent times, just like now and any other time you care to mention. Only thing was, this guy turned his  back on all that sword play and war making, telling his followers it wasn’t worth a wooden nickel. He was merely pointing out the obvious, as any of his followers who looked into their own hearts and found them swelling with love can attest.

Jesus was the guy’s name, and his teachings and his ministry annoyed the crap out of a lot of the powers-that-be in his country, a hodge-podge of military, royalty, occupying powers and religious authorities that had forgotten about the love in their hearts and were in a pretty rotten state of mind. He was warned again and again to cut it out already and stop getting on the nerves of the powerful but he didn’t pay them any mind, even dismissed them as unimportant in the grand scheme of things. That’s a dangerous thing to do with petty officialdom, those unfortunate creatures who channel their love into self-worshp and glorification, with the predictable results of becoming ridiculous human beings. Well, ridiculous people can be very dangerous when threatened and they wound up killing this young Jesus guy for his troubles.

Turns out the joke was on them and his message of love outlived them all. His followers now number in the billions and their love is beyond our puny capacity to measure it. The sad thing, though, is that we confine our love, and forget that Jesus taught us to love all people, love them with the same fierce passion with which we love our families and friends. Hardest of all, he told us we should love our enemies! That’s a real challenge, to be sure, but if you examine that bold statement closely, it contains the answer to the unending violent times and the bloody carnage that passes for history around here, and around every other place too. If you really get to know your neighbor, for that is who our enemies are on this small world, odds are you’ll find a person whose heart is as filled with love as your own.

Every human everywhere shares the universal trait of learning to love before they can walk. We all want to be safe and warm and keep our families the same way. We all would rather love than hate, rather love that fight, rather love than stain our spirits with small and petty complaints. We all would rather live than die, since life is one of the things we love most of all. When one of us loses their life, as one day we all do, those of us who loved them seek one another out and love each other more fiercely than ever, and share memories of love of the person we lost as we say goodbye.

It is an overwhelmingly powerful and universal experience, and always it is love that heals the loss of a loved one. We remember the good, the beautiful, the courageous and most of all, the love. Take away all our toys, all our riches and all our possessions, and still people are blessed and rich. We have love. Turn away from love at your mortal peril, embrace it for your salvation. Love all of God’s children for the beautiful beings that they are. Love is the tie that binds, that heals, that bestows beauty and worth and life itself. And as a humble carpenter’s son once pointed out 2,000 years ago, love will one day bring us peace. When we are ready, when our eyes can finally see what our hearts already know for certain, and when we allow ourselves to be all that we were designed to be, love will bind us all. It’s the only game in town.