We have been through tremendous changes as a county and as a world, and it seems like the speed of change is increasing. Now when I think about Christmas, I think about how even something that was once so stable, so familiar and comforting, is going through its own changes.

We have schools not allowing teachers to say the word "Christmas," town councils changing the name of the Christmas tree to a bland, generic "holiday" tree, Christmas as a Christian holiday is being attacked. Then there are those who say "what war against Christmas?" All the change is happening at different paces and in different directions for different people.

Lots of "different."

Why is that happening?

The rate of change that we are going through is breaking us apart into different atomistic groups, as people react to new realities differently. This creates a lot of anxiety. The world needs to change, but will we lose what is good about it? How can we adapt Christmas to respect others beliefs without losing what is great about it?

It speaks to the larger question of how can we change our families, our communities, our government, how can we change our culture in ways that it needs to change without losing what we already have that is valuable? For example, right here in Napa, how can we allow the new development that we need without losing the small town that we love?

That is the dilemma we all face, and it is not really a liberal vs conservative issue. It is an issue of creating something new, and the anxiety that engenders.

Often people turn to the need for safety as an antidote, which seems to be motivating so much of what we are doing now, from the war on terror to scaring kids about global warming. This tremendous need for safety is at the point of being noble-ized into an end in itself, but sadly it won‚t work. Life is full of risks and no number of seat belt laws will ever change that.

People are terrified that the world will somehow end. However, someone has been predicting the end of the earth since it started. Maybe since before it started. Satan probably told God, seven days, are you kidding me? No way, earth will never happen. But here we are, and so far, we are still here.

If you look into the partisan fighting, there is a hidden unity behind all this divisiveness, which is that the passionate debate is from people who care. They are united in their caring about the issues.

So here's a Christmas thought to unite us. The real Christmas is about remembering to be giving, caring and loving. It's a reminder that the only thing that really matters is love, and the rest will wash away with time and be forgotten. It's remembering that what you do is because you care, and grant others the same respect, that what they do is because they care. That is the true spirit of Christmas that we can all get behind whatever our religious beliefs.