This is not the season for challenges.  In fact, it should be the season where we choose appropriate surprises to delight our family and friends and look forward to getting together in support groups to share peace and good will that should be the message of Christmas as it has been for ages.  It is also the time in the middle of the winter of our lives to forget the ravages of cold, hunger and things put aside that challenge us - for a little merrymaking.  We need to duck the forces of nature for a short while, while waiting for the rebirth of spring and the warmth of summer.

We are not dealing well with the big challenges.  These are war in Iraq, the divisions in this country over what democracy means and inhuman treatments of one sect of believers against another. Then there is the everlasting search for an alternative to coal, gas and oil for energy. We desperately need to make our machines run with hard working people at those machines to produce the goods we rush to buy in our mercantiles.  We are challenged by the excess of sunlight and hydrogen waiting to be turned into power to supply our needs and wants.

The little challenges of getting enough to eat when the urge is to over-eat are upon us in these unsettling days of bad weather.  We have produced a new race of humans who are obese and do not need the food they spend their time searching for and demolishing.  With so many challenges for good works, good deeds and fine inspiring words, people opt out for over-nourishing themselves while others are suffering from malnutrition and early onset of diseases and death.

A world without challenges would be a world of sameness – something like the utopias are tarred with.  With a whole bagful of things that could be, should be and must be done there are enough challenges to make life interesting and filled with action to satisfy the young who yearn for opportunities to show what they can do to help their fellow men and women.

The challenge of our age is to make democracy work even with the inundation of people seeking a home here who do not have the skills needed to make democracy work.  Unfortunately, our elected leaders also do NOT have the skills needed to make democracy work.  That is a challenge each two, four and six years when we fiddle with voting machines to discover what the majority wants.

There are think tanks to discover what people want in the way of styles and electronic toys.  There are think tanks to discover how to market goods more profitably.  And there should be think tanks to produce challenges on a human scale that will encourage the old and the young to make this a better planet on which to live. Life without challenges would be dull and dreary – just like too much winter.