We give thanks for mothers who sacrifice their own bodies to bring new life into the world. We give thanks for the charity of benefactors who donate food and clothing to help those who are less fortunate this season. We give thanks for the natural world and its fruits, given to humanity to be enjoyed but not squandered. We give thanks for husbands and wives who faithfully put each other first for a lifetime despite a world that encourages them to be selfish. We give thanks for families and churches, where our local community finds support, undaunted by the fickleness of the economy. And we give thanks for even a brief pause in the war in the Middle East while hostages are reunited with their families.

That is not to say that we should pretend that everything is perfect. We remain vigilant against the destroyers of gratefulness: spoiled disrespect and prideful self-reliance. As we celebrate the holidays with our loved ones, let us set an attractive example of thankfulness and gratitude, which inspires our families and friends to appreciate and share the abundance of the Earth in solidarity with all.

By standing in solidarity together, we have hope that we can leave our bioregion better than we found it.

Tyler J. VanderWeele, in the article “On the promotion of human flourishing” published in Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, tackles this question. The article reviews previous studies defining flourishing, creating measures for thriving and subjective happiness, health and even economic measures such as production and consumption of goods that may influence flourishing.  To understand the study of  flourishing, the author employs six broad domains that are interrelated:  Happiness and life satisfaction, health, meaning and purpose, character and virtue, and close social relationships.  VanderWeele has added sufficient financial resources, noting that having the means to supply basic life needs is essential to thriving.  

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) performs periodic surveys of life satisfaction, positive feelings, health and other conditions associated with happiness and flourishing.  VanderWeele’s domains are pulled from these surveys.  Four “pathways” most associated with flourishing are identified:  family, work, education and religious community. 

Marriage/family:  Effects of family and marriage are substantial, not just for the people who get married, but especially for their children.  Marriage and family also impact most of the other domains.  

Work:  Even though work is often portrayed as drudgery, having a job increases life satisfaction. Re-employment for the unemployed does the same.  Although not as well understood as the positive effects of marriage and family, the effects of employment on life satisfaction are clear.

Education:  Education’s contributions to well-being and health are not as robust as marriage or employment.   These educational effects go beyond just improved earning potential.  

Religion:  Belonging to a religious community is associated with many domains of flourishing including health (physical and mental health), staying married, and having social supports.  Religion’s contribution to flourishing is most robust in those who regularly attend services.  

The last section of the article discusses promoting human flourishing.  Policies to support marriage include access to counseling for troubled marriages and abandoning policies that dis-incentivize work (such as welfare programs that provide needed services that are cancelled when recipients work).  Also included is ncrease access to supported employment for vulnerable populations.  Negative portrayals of religion in media can and should be balanced with the many positive benefits of religious participation. 

Our society acts as if ecology and the economy are opposed to each other, but in fact, they are two sides of the same coin. Both come from the Greek root word οἶκος, meaning “house”. Ecology means learning the logic by which our global house operates, while economy means following the rules of living with others in this house. There’s no contradiction between the two.

The end goal of the economy is to allow every family to meet their needs as efficiently as possible, which entails revitalizing the commons that people draw upon to provide for their needs, creating a safety net for people whose age or health restricts their productive capacity, providing for the defense of people and their property, and distributing excess goods fairly, in proportion to how much people have given.

Problems occur when we try to measure the economy merely with sums of money. A sign of a “bad economy” is that speculation is rewarded while laborers languish. We should avoid waste just as much as poverty, and this is ignored by aggregate numeric measures like GDP or inflation. Dorothy Sayers said, “A society in which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded on trash and waste.” Defining the goal in terms of “growth” contradicts the true meaning of “economy”, and also starts to interfere with its sister, ecology.

Ecology starts with scientific study of how our planet works. Life is beautifully resilient, and will find a way to thrive in many diverse environments, from the arctic to the tropical rainforests. Ecology does not mean simply conserving the way that things used to be; we build upon nature to improve it and ourselves. For example, in the inland Northwest, we have canals that water the desert, causing farms and trees to spring up in areas that were previously brown. While humans can and do improve on nature, we also have to recognize our limits. When we have no regard for long-term sustainability or regard for its natural rhythms, the Earth is pushed to the breaking point.

Personally, my desire for luxurious consumption has been kept in check by the basic material needs of my wife and children who share my house. Imagine if the news media reported as much on the growth in the number of healthy productive families as they do on the growth in the value of material goods exchanged. Perhaps Americans would be more motivated to let go of a few luxuries and share with the less fortunate who share our global house. Perhaps we would work a little harder to produce locally instead of exporting the environmental destruction to the other side of the world.

The rules of justice and the logic of science are both telling us the same thing. Money is only a means that we use to grow our human community. We get it completely backwards when we use people as means to grow our money. Families and friendships are natural ways to keep the purpose of material goods in perspective. When we let love limit our lust for luxury, we can work together to see both our economy and ecology flourish.

After the baby was born, things went from bad to worse. A band of government-sponsored terrorists threatened her child’s life and forced her to flee her country. Narrowly, with the help of her husband, she escaped to Egypt where they remained until the regime was overthrown. While there, this small family received just enough help and support from the natives to live a simple life in hiding and provide for Jesus’ needs.

It’s scary to think about what would’ve happened to the Holy Family had this scenario played out in our modern world. Where do poor mothers go for help? There are billboards and pop-up ads pressuring them to terminate their pregnancies. Our culture of fear no longer welcomes immigrants, even when they have nowhere else to go. If they were lucky, Mary and Jesus would’ve ended up in a homeless shelter.

The American Solidarity Party is the only party in the United States that would have supported Jesus both in the womb and as a refugee. We support a constitutional amendment to guarantee from conception the same unalienable right to life that is specified in our Declaration of Independence. We call for adequate social services and support for women, immigrants and other vulnerable persons who are walking among us. Only this two-pronged approach will bring hope to those who so desperately need it today.

The only way our democracy can survive is by finding common ground once again and returning to common sense principles. The American Solidarity Party is reuniting people from both sides of the divide in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho who are actively seeking the common good. If you share our vision of peace and productive dialogue, then you are welcome to join us!