If you get all your neighbors together, sing a few songs, march in a parade, joi

If you get all your neighbors together, sing a few songs, march in a parade, join in a feast, participate in a festival, celebrate a holiday, listen to speeches, watch plays, or play games, then pretty much it’s a good thing at all times. It pretty much doesn’t matter what songs are about, the reason for the parade, the food you eat, the origins of the festival, the content of the speeches, the plot of the play, or the rules of the game.

What matters is that everyone feels the joy of all these many substitutes for running with the pack – where we act as one. As a tribe, pack, flock, school … a single body and soul.

That’s what ‘church’ is for.

Now, I would prefer that w sang songs of our pagan and heroic past, toasted our generals and politicians, celebrated the festivals of our scientists, philosophers and poets, gave speeches to current good deeds, watched plays about the civic virtues, and played games that celebrated our victories.

But we can do non of that living in commercial rabbit warrens, protecting our status signal nest, and insulating ourselves from the reality of our irrelevance independent of one another.

In the end of it all, you cannot be happy without people whom you love and are loved by. Everything else is just decoration.