I just re-read Rod Dreher’s FAQ on the Benedict Option. I love it. Although Dreher is talking exclusively to Christians (though inclusively among varieties of Christians), there’s a lot there for the rest of us, as well.
He opens with a quote from his inspiration, social critic and historian Alasdair MacIntyre, that says in part:
A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. What they set themselves to achieve instead often not recognizing fully what they were doing—was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the new dark ages which are already upon us. And if the tradition of the virtues was able to survive the horrors of the last dark ages, we are not entirely without grounds for hope.
Hundreds of thousands of us, maybe millions, have come to the same conclusion (or have held similar views since the days of Atlas Shrugged and Galt’s Gulch). Certainly the wisest watchers have long since “ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of [the U.S. or “Five Eyes”] imperium.”
Finally (if belatedly, slowly, and reluctantly) moral, intellectual, philosophical, and survival communities have begun to coalesce.
Freedomista communities can be as varied in kind as their participants can make them: intentional, accidental, familial, communitarian, individualist, monastic, quasi-monastic, neighborhood-based, floating, mobile, urban, suburban, rural, offshore, you name it. They don’t have to fit any cubbyhole identity at all. One of the best freedomista communities I know of began life as a purpose-made intentional organization, lost about half of its members, but all the while expanded outward with the addition of neighbors who maybe didn’t talk freedom talk but who definitely lived freedomista values. So it’s kind of an unintentional intentional community that now spreads over several sparsely populated miles.
Dreher’s Benedict Option FAQ doesn’t say anything about what physical or organizational form the life he envisions has to take, but it does point to one natural development: supportive lay communities gathering around traditionalist churches or monasteries, pretty much as happened during monasticism, part I, back in the Dark Ages.
Non-religious or more inclusively religious communities could form around … just spitballing here … granges, gun clubs, local schools, medical centers, vocational-technical schools, available parcels of rural property, charismatic individuals (though that one’s usually a terrible idea), grocery or hardware stores, small farming communities, the intersections of trade routes, or you name it.
So much to be done in the area of community building — and fortunately so many to do it!
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But we are often necessarily short-sighted about the potential of communities if indeed dark times descend upon us. We just want to get something going; long-term developments are out of our control, anyway. But beyond merely providing defense and varied skillsets and mutual aid and encouragement and neighbors committed to compatible goals, communities can eventually provide networks of the above and more.
It’s easy to envision regional, then national trade routes developing, and even to foresee communities founding other communities from afar, as monasteries still do today.
After whatever initial chaos must merely be endured, organization and communication will grow.
But I promised I’d talk about “the symbiosis in hard times between those freedomistas who retreat … and those who fight.” Though I’ve been walking wandering ways to get to it, here we are.
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“Those who fight” may be (duh) actually guerrilla warriors (any physical warfare we face is almost certain to be guerrilla). But fighters could also, in unfree times, be public speakers, organizers, authors, pamphleteers (electronic or the old-fashioned kind), messengers, saboteurs, filmmakers, or simply cranky, stubborn individuals who loudly refuse to conform to the demands of the imperium. Many people can be rendered pariahs, criminals, undesireables, or “unpersons” for their intransigence before an increasingly ruthless state. In short, the word “fighters” could encompass virtually everybody of the type we call activists (or capital-A Agitators in Freedom Outlaw parlance). — the very people who in the past have looked down on those of us who advocate strategic retreat or emphasize local community building.
How do we benefit each other, in those potential dark days? (Keeping in mind that we can’t know what form our dark days may assume. Outright war? Simple, but irrecoverable economic ruin? Stable but iron-fisted tyranny? Widespread moral and intellectual decay? Environmental catastrophe? Fanatical mob violence? All different but all raising needs for mutual support among free people.)
Communities can provide for warriors and activists:
- Places to hide
- Places to resupply
- Rest and recuperation
- Food
- Medical care for wounds or illnesses
- Underground transportation out of the area
- “Legitimate” cover for dangerous activities
- Jobs during lulls in fighting or between activist forays
- Monetary support
- Moral support
- Intellectual stimulation
- Love and friendship
Warriors and traveling (fugitive) activists can provide for communities:
- News from the front lines
- News from other communities
- News from the wider world
- Trade goods not locally available
- “Raid goods” liberated from tyrants (including luxury items, secret documents, and books and artworks needing to be hidden away and preserved for the future)
- Strategic partners with different views and experiences
- Weapons for community or individual defense
- Healthy young men to help with heavy work/harvest work
- Fresh genes to prevent the community from becoming inbred
- Ideas and intellectual discussion from the outside world
- Protection
Of course communities and fighters can land each other in danger, too. Being caught harboring a fighter could result in anything from a few arrests to mass murder of an entire group. Seeking refuge within a community could bring a fighter both safety and the danger of being betrayed. Even fighters in a good cause can still rape and pillage. Traders in even an an otherwise fine community can be tempted to cheat “outsiders.” Hazards are many and they go both ways.
But we’re talking about people and establishments existing in dark, already dangerous, times. Such dangers have always gone with the territory.
Again, all this symbiosis, all this mutual benefit (and more) can happen without the traders or the refuge seekers or refuge granters agreeing on every political point or life choice. None of this requires all parties to be in agreement on anything — except the bare fact that each has needs the other can fulfill and each party, each group (I hope), recognizes and respects how the other can further the causes of liberty and preservation/restoration of long-term intellectual life. This life, and these trades on both sides do require committedly self-sufficient, responsible, decent, principled people. But they don’t require sameness or rigid agreement on all things.
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Of course, you may be saying. This isn’t news. This is just Claire describing the invisible hand of markets, or common-knowledge history of underground resistance or the Soviet samizdat or the way things may have worked back in the Dark Ages. And you’re right! That’s all it is. Nothing new.
Except that, just as those early retreatants from the Roman imperium forged new forms of community and an entirely new society without necessarily even understanding that’s what they were doing, any dark future we end up in will also, in a sense, re-create the world.
How that new world comes out will depend on more variables, more choices, more happenstances, and more quirks of fate than any mind can anticipate. For instance, if our electronic realm remains intact (and we’re forced to make it more secure and decentralized) the implications will be entirely different than if we’re forced to communicate offline, covertly, and far more slowly. A time of long, violent guerrilla warfare will produce a different result than a time of gradual institutional collapse in which physical danger is minimal but local warlords or raving fanatics may rise and fall. And we can’t see from here which of a thousand outcomes is more likely to transpire.
However the long-term events unfold, whatever kind of society emerges on the other side, in the short- to medium-term we’re looking at one ominous world.
But the very fact that my bullet lists up there describe simply what has happened, what does happen, what occurs often and very naturally in human populations whose institutions have collapsed and are being torn apart is a heartening thing.
Whatever we face — and I hope it’s nothing worse than a Soviet-style non-violent collapse, but without the old empire being parceled out to apparatchiks-cum-oligarchs (especially given that we’ve already a surfeit of oligarchs and don’t need more of them) — retreatants and activists alike can face it with the comforting knowledge that, push come to shove, we can quit knocking each other’s choices and get down to the eternal verities of mutually supporting each other for mutual benefit.
“And so our “awkward stage” continues.”
When I first read Claire’s wonderful phrase about the awkward stage, it seemed to me the best expression of an idea that I am sure many of us have had for a long time: That the government allows us just enough freedom and and allows us to keep just enough of the money we earn to avoid fomenting another revolution. It also made me think that the government has been very skilled at maintaining this awkward stage. This led to a few questions: When did this awkward stage start? (1865? WWI era? WWII era? 1972? Other? Does it matter?) How much longer can this awkward stage be maintained? This may be easier to answer, as the rest of the two-part article is generally about the various ways in which the demise of the awkward stage, which has already begun, might proceed.
“What was petty and amusing monkeywrenching a quarter of a century ago is now “domestic terrorism.””
The times have definitely changed, but so have we, at least I have. A few (several?) decades ago I was much more invincible and much less risk-averse than I am now. Back then I thought that *some* activist activities would generally be seen by many / most others that might have cause to look into the matter (like potential future employers) as a sort of badge of honor, or at least as an indication of principled dedication. Now, not so much. Back then I thought that this country was on a course for steadily increasing freedom and enlightenment, as the principled and freedom-loving hippies and other denizens of the counter-culture naturally aged into positions influence and power, in both the private and public sectors, and as the mostly older authoritarians of the day naturally aged into the cemetery. I was wrong. Now, authoritarians are everywhere, and seem to be gaining traction. What would have been a standard high school prank a few decades ago might now become a Federal law enforcement issue: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210606/19090546946/high-school-responds-to-students-prank-asking-local-law-enforcement-to-step-investigate.shtml
“This life, and these trades on both sides do require committedly self-sufficient, responsible, decent, principled people.”
True. But there always exist people who are irresponsible, indecent, unprincipled parasites. In order for the future to turn out in a positive way that respects individual freedom, these “bad” people must be prevented from achieving positions of influence, power, and control. Our current and previous attempts at this have all ended in dismal failure. Any suggestions for a new approach that might work?
Love it Claire! You’re so good at taking my thoughts, of which you are unaware, and weaving them into a coherent description- which means we are all having these thoughts. The most difficult part of our awkward stage, to me, is understanding the people who thrive on tyranny. They feel a moral superiority, they can’t see another point of view, and they are emboldened. I’ve never seen, in my life, such a fracture in our society. A simple example are the people who feel it their job to badger anyone in sight who isn’t in compliance, say, with a “mask mandate”; people who are “triggered” by certain colors (red, white & blue, for instance); people who are so willing to “report” or “turn in” a fellow citizen for non-compliance. It’s just flat out crazy! And it drives us to find our own like-minded communities for the simple relief of not being hounded by the crazies. The primary reason the Nazis were successful in rounding up their list of “undesirables” was the cooperation of the general populace (after disarmament of course). “The Great Migration”, as I call it, people fleeing the cities for rural life in droves, is the result of tyranny and the people who support it. Thankfully, this is a big country and there’s a lot of space to spread out in. There are still whole swaths of this country that are filled with Freedomistas – people who just want to be left alone to live their best lives. But, we must not just go hide. We must take all politics Local and fight to regain or retain political control (meaning freedom laws) locally, and then move outward. It’s the only strategy I see working to regain our freedoms. We need to “flip the script” on the crazies and let them know they aren’t wanted in our communities; refuse to do business with them; shout back at them even; shun them like the Amish do! My preference is the hidey hole approach, but I realize that for the sake of my grandchildren, I have to stand up and fight back in whatever ways I can.
Simon Templar — I recall you saying you were going to save up comments for part II. Thumbs up. Worth the wait.
I never thought the “awkward stage” would last this long. But yes, I suspect you’re right that the smarter people in legislatures and bureaucracies know how to draw matters out to avoid having an all-out rebellion on their hands. But someday some stupid, incautious, or sufficiently arrogant “leader” comes along. Or things just fall apart on their own. Then, lucky us, after years of feeling both angry and inadequate, we get to go from “awkward stage” to “interesting times.”
And that link … terrible story. And unsurprising overreaction.
Granny — “The most difficult part of our awkward stage, to me, is understanding the people who thrive on tyranny.” I agree. Sometimes I think the most difficult part is merely waiting it out while wondering when, if, and how to ultimately act. But understanding the mindset of tyranny is definitely both hard — and vital.
And thanks for your enthusiasm and support. I always enjoy your attitude and your thoughts.
My fear is that the most immediate need is to find ways to financially survive, when we can’t buy or sell without the Mark of the Beast – I mean a COVID vaccine passport.
I have always been skeptical of this prophecy from Revelation. How could the powers that be actually enforce that? This past year has given an unfortunate preview of how.
The bad news is this house of cards we are participating in (different levels of course) will collapse soon the good news is this house of cards……………..
Right this moment most people are too busy to pay attention, self interest is driving everything however survival in the future will be THE main if not only self interest of everyone and those not paying attention will not survive.
Key word; Virtue, is survival worthwhile without it? Do you want to live with people who do not have virtue? Will there be a line between good and evil?
So those of us that do make it through the first culling IMHO it will then be all about marrying up survival and virtue, of course there will be predators and vultures as it always has been in nature and the weak will not have a lot of 2nd chances so strength in what ever one does will be very important.
Soon; ……we can quit knocking each other’s choices and get down to the eternal verities of mutually supporting each other for mutual benefit.” BINGO!!!
The vaccine passport thing has failed, for the most part, but it depends upon where you live. For instance, I spent some time recently in Kommiefornia and wow what a difference as opposed to Idaho. The frogs are outright boiling and so many are not jumping out of the pot!! I want to start shouting at people on a street corner “WAKE UP! WAKE UP!” Many are getting out even as I type, some of which I know personally.
My focus this year has been on getting my financial house in order so that I can withstand the continued onslaught of tyranny from our government. They want to control our financial status, what we own, what we have access to, etc. Call me a crazy tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist, but I’m going all in on the debt-free sustainable homestead, even if it’s small in scale.
Granny; Ditto’s!!
Three Claire posts in a week’s time. This is the best week ever.
I have listening to a couple of different podcasts on the Fall of Rome/Byzantine Empire and both have made the point that even after the Roman Empire “fell” in 476, the concept of it remained active in people’s mind for another two or three generations. It was only when it became apparent that the “barbarians” were not leaving and the Eastern Roman Empire was not coming (at least as saviour but rather as a ruler) that the administrative class turned its energies and attentions to their new masters and building the new societies that became Western Europe. Likewise, I wonder if we have yet reached the tipping point where more people see their futures in a new or different system instead of the current existing one. When they do, the curtain will fall.
It also true – I think – that the monastic communities did not start out thinking they were “saving” civilization or even starting what became international movements. They were simply following what they felt to be their calling of establishing communities dedicated to a specific purpose – in their case following God. I suppose the same could be said of a group like the Jomsburg Vikings or the Condotierri of Italy, although not nearly as peaceful.
The challenge for these small groups (or not so small, as the case may be) will finding ways to connect to each other as behind, underneath, or outside of the system of the Government. It can be done – good heavens, black markets have existed forever; it just needs to be learned.
Your bullet points are spot on – but what we (the groups, I include myself in this) will have to do is find a way not only to vet each other, but learn to trust each other to provide the benefits. That may be the hardest part of all.
Your Obedient Servant, Toirdhealbheach Beucail
“My fear is that the most immediate need is to find ways to financially survive, when we can’t buy or sell without the Mark of the Beast – I mean a COVID vaccine passport.
It might not specifically be a vaccine passport but I won’t be surprised if it’s something – and that ties very neatly into the topic. Because this is a perfect application for symbiosis between people who live outside the network and people still tied to it to some degree.
There will always be freedomistas still on the grid, and when it comes to doing business with freedomistas off the grid, they have a very obvious set of services to trade. Banking, for example. Access to products and services available only to the (licensed, whatever form that license takes.) Hell, it’s allergy season and I have to get somebody with a government ID to supply me with antihistamines, right?
Point is, if we get the Mark of the Beast imposed on us, we subvert the Mark to our own purposes and keep right on living. Hell, I’ve been doing it for decades. Free trade!
This is just Claire describing the invisible hand of markets, or common-knowledge history of underground resistance or the Soviet samizdat or the way things may have worked back in the Dark Ages. And you’re right! That’s all it is. Nothing new.
Nothing new to us. When SHTF it will be new to a lot of people. The “comforting” part is that it will be terribly new to the intellectuals, who believe if their philosophy is pure, and they just want something enough, it will work as planned. Throughout history, every single time, they are Utterly Surprised when they are herded on the first buses to the camps.
For instance, if our electronic realm remains intact (and we’re forced to make it more secure and decentralized) the implications will be entirely different than if we’re forced to communicate offline, covertly, and far more slowly.
I almost hope it doesn’t remain. Yes, the electronic realm is great for blogging with other freedomistas. It’s also tied in with the surveillance state.
as the principled and freedom-loving hippies and other denizens of the counter-culture naturally aged into positions influence and power
I was never that optimistic. The hippies I grew up with were all for “Do your own thing,” as long as it looked like their thing; tune in, turn on, drop out. I can’t count the number of times I was assured that going to church with my parents and becoming an Eagle Scout just couldn’t be “my thing.”
Through many discussions, both in life and on-line, I have become convinced that THE essential ingredient of any Freedom community is a shared and mutual recognition and respect for Property Rights (your body), Property Rights (your rightfully acquired “stuff” including weapons) and Property Rights (your real estate) ALONG WITH “The Supreme Principle of Civilization” as in “NO ONE has the right to initiate force against another person or their property, nor to authorize or delegate such initiation of force”.
In my humble opinion, everything else, including religion, race, ethnicity or any other factors, can live and grow within such a mutual framework of understanding and respecting these “simple” but critical “Rights” and “non-aggression”.
That’s the community I want to be in!
Excerpted from Survivalblog:
An Urgent Request: The nomination of David Chipman, the proposed Director of the ATF will be coming up for a vote tomorrow morning (June 17, 2021), before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The committee is expected to vote in favor of his nomination along party lines. PLEASE contact both of your state’s U.S. Senators TODAY, and insist that they vote against confirming this anti-gun zealot. And as long as you have a Senate staffer in the phone line, ask them to relay a message to that senator: Urge them to introduce or co-sponsor legislation that would remove all barrel length restrictions from the National Firearms Act. This would remove any restrictions and Federal $200 tax requirements on a Short-barreled shotgun (SBS) or a Short-barreled rifle (SBR). That would make the Biden’s administration’s draconian reclassification of arm-braced guns moot.
Urge them to introduce or co-sponsor legislation that would remove all barrel length restrictions from the National Firearms Act.
Unfortunately, that’s a waste of effort. Better to focus on Chipman, who will probably be confirmed anyway.
No such barrel length bill will pass Congress until Republicans have a majority in the House and 60 pro-gun Senate votes. Even if that were to come about in 2022, President Biden would veto it, which requires 2/3 of each house to override.
If in 2024, miraculously, the Rs take control of the House and the White House, and have the 60 Senate votes, they’ll most likely squander the opportunity going overboard on LGBT, Right to Life, and other such.
>Property Rights (your real estate)
I agree, but I don’t see how a system of real property rights can exist separate and apart from the legal machinery necessary to enforce said rights.
“I hold a deed,” said the property owner.
Ah yes, but it is recorded in the courthouse? If not, you got nothing but a piece of paper.
Good point BillMiller.
Ultimately, ALL property depends upon your ability to defend it AND the neighbors understanding and respecting your right to own/possess it.
Different communities I’m sure, might have different “rules” concerning land transfers, most would probably require it in writing with a witness. Certainly there can be private arbitrators and recorders offices without “government”.
I feel that the faith in and respect of, Universal Property Rights, along with the Supreme Principle of Civilized People is a sufficient basis for building communities, all of which could be different in many aspects, EXCEPT these 4 critical aspects and basic philosophy.
I agree, but I don’t see how a system of real property rights can exist separate and apart from the legal machinery necessary to enforce said rights.
Absolutely, civilization needs the rule of law. But the rules should be impartial, “everyone equal under the law.”
Unfortunately government is never perfect, and we get abominations like Kilo v New London, the present muddle in Western California where there’s a raging housing shortage because the Legislature has so hamstrung housing construction, and the results of decades of rent control in New York City.
The absence of “government”, does not mean “no rules” or “no law”.
There is no “law” about safe behavior on a gun range but there are certainly “rules” and they are strictly enforced without government.
I agree that civilization needs the rule of law, we just don’t need “government”. Except in a few rare instances (and maybe America was one at one time), it has consistently proven to grow harmful to it’s own people.
I’m not sure the fall of the Western Roman Empire is a good parallel for us. The barbarians came in from the east, and started building a new civilization that thought it was Roman, but wasn’t. The Eastern Empire stood as a bulwark against the Persians, and later the Arabs. It tried half-heartedly to muck with western Europe (e.g. the Exarchate of Ravenna), but never put much effort into it, being preoccupied with Persia, and later the Arab eruption. Today the West faces China. China will muck in western affairs, and the weaker western governments are, the more it will meddle, and the more blatantly so.
Which presents a problem for freedomistas. As bad as western governments have become, an unrestrained Chinese Communist Party is far worse. And thinks that, as heirs to the Chinese emperors, it has the right to rule the world.
…” and I hope it’s nothing worse than a Soviet-style non-violent collapse,”
We’re perched on the edge of that now; how steep the grade is in either direction, and what forces are pushing in which direction, will probably determine the result.
The Soviet transformation into “Russia” was, and is, interesting. Save for petroleum, some minerals, and government power, there’s not a lot worth anything there, at least not much capable of generating sufficient revenue to warrant a full-court press from outside the country to obtain or control it.
So, the controls applied have been internal, with sufficient structure there to enforce decisions about with whom agreements, and bargains, are entered into. Meaning: “Russian organized crime” largely runs the show.
Will America follow the same path? Our Silicon Valley Oligarch Community generates, and controls, immense wealth; what happens to that wealth and the generating capacity that makes it possible and, especially, the tremendous value associated with Silicon Valley itself, when conditions deteriorate enough that few are on Facebook, or Twitter, or Snapchart, that knowing what’s in local stores has greater value than what Google can tell one about availabilty six countries away?
The transportation industry generates wealth because it has such great value; what happens when “transport” largely becomes “6 miles into the village” instead of “1,800 miles to Chicago”? Will there be adventurers from other countries eager to assume control of rusty railroad tracks and dilapidated rolling stock? Eisenhower’s Great Accomplishment – American autobahns – will lose a lot of value when 15 MPH is the usual travel velocity because of all the potholes to be steered around.
The real estate of great American cities is, even now, in the process of precipitously losing value as Americans have discovered income can still be generated from afar, in places where civilization is more welcoming. Anyone from Berlin, or Paris, or London, or Jakarta, been seen lately in Detroit realty offices waving a bulging checkbook? How about in New York? San Francisco? Portland? Miami?
Will life in Washington D.C. be as desirable, or as necessary, when power relocates to regional areas, in economic and social segments below the level offering efficient remote control. Will D.C. become a modern version of Louis XIV’s royal court at Versailles? Has it already?
A “Soviet-style non-violent collapse” is already well under way; where it takes us is up to us to determine and direct. Use it wisely.
“Three Claire posts in a week’s time. This is the best week ever.” Agreed, TB! Thanks, Claire!
Just spent a delightful hour with that new-to-me Rod Dreher FAQ. Husband and I are Christians who have found much encouragement in his recent books. We aren’t part of any intentional formal BenOp community, but are well-connected across some local churches and with wider home-schooling circles. The last few weeks have seen 2 funerals and a wedding in our extended family: loyal conservative Catholics burying one of their elderly, deep rural homeschool families in loving solidarity grieving the loss of a fine 25 year old daughter to cancer, urban homeschoolers (lots of ’em) backyard partying in the union of two of their best. All precious, unspeakably beautiful in their different ways.
This is all hopeful to me. There is a good future to fight for. Community building is key.
Thank you for sharing your precious moments with us.
My view of the Chinese (or Russian or ….) Governments is the same. Regardless of their intent when started, they always evolve into a controlling tyranny, always protecting their own power and interests, not those of it’s citizens.
My view of the average people everywhere, whether Chinese, Americans, Russians or ……, is that they ALL desire safety for themselves and their families and to live peacefully in their own homes, enjoying the results of their honest labor. Of course, there are psychopaths, there always are, hence the Supreme Principle of Civilization and the absolute right of weapons and self defense.
What can we Freedomistas do? Live our lives according to our beliefs and set examples and role models, as best we can, while attempting to educate others with our philosophy. Fortunately, the heavy lifting was started by our forefathers, with their initiation of the Magna Carta, The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution and The Bill of Rights but then, it was clarified and summarized between Jefferson, Mises and Rothbard, How simple and all inclusive is the basic concept of “Property Rights”, (your body, your stuff and your real estate) and that they are YOURS and inviolate, protected by “The Supreme Principle of Civilized People” , which is “NO ONE, has the right to initiate force against another person or their property, nor to authorize nor delegate the use of force against another person or their property.” PERIOD.
How brief and simple. Property Rights and Non Aggression.
Maybe we should call it “St. Rothbards Rule” and share it around the world, in the hopes it will spread, grow and preserve the remnants of Freedom lovers, just as St. Benedict did with his rules.
Thank you Claire, for being a bright and shinning star in this effort.
Amen.