Jeff McCord: Some things are more important than others

On his 2005 album, "Have A Nice Day," singer Jon Bon Jovi asks the question, "Who says you can't go home?" Let me just say that ladies of a certain age really love Jon Bon Jovi, just like gentlemen of a certain age really love Sheryl Crow.That's not at all relevant to Mr. Bon Jovi's question, but sometimes the obvious needs to be acknowledged, so that it can then be ignored. Now back to the question to which the answer is Thomas Wolfe, maybe.Wolfe's novel "You Can't Go Home Again" was published in 1940, which was actually after Wolfe's death. It turns out that Thomas Wolfe's editor "extracted" the novel from a much longer novel with a different title.So, was it Wolfe, his editor, or as legend has it some random Australian woman who said, "You can't go home"? Sorry Jon Bon Jovi, there is no true answer to your question. It seems that like so many things perceived as deep-seated realities, there is a tenuous connection between its origin and its impact.The legend of Father Christmas has been around for quite some time, even as early as the 3rd century. Although, in Europe, especially Germany, Christmas was mostly a holiday filled with drinking and rabble-rousing.In the United States, it took us nearly 100 years into our existence before we acknowledged Christmas as a day to celebrate in the manner we do today.It doesn't seem like that. The impression that many of us have is that right after the Pilgrims ate their turkey and cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, they started weaving their stockings out of cornhusks in anticipation of Saint Nicholas.It turns out though that Saint Nicholas, or Santa Claus as we know him, was a very different guy back then.Santa was an elf, a tall gaunt man, and even a wicked-looking scary guy. It wasn't until Coca-Cola needed a marketing image in the 1930s that the jolly, white-bearded giver of gifts was created.Now, I'm not trying to pick on Santa Claus. Heck, I don't want coal in my stocking. But it is important to recognize how we celebrate and symbolize what is for many of us a tremendously important day was only recently created to sell soda pop.Some things are more important than others. And some things — just a few things actually — are absolutely essential. It's hard on us to separate what's what sometimes. We hold fast to beliefs and traditions. They connect us, but they also separate us. Just because we believe something doesn't make it so. And as invested as we may be in traditions, traditions aren't truth.Maybe, we can go home again. Or maybe it's only you that can't go home again, whoever "you" may be. Just because someone writes it or sings it doesn't make it so. And perhaps, the image of a jolly gift-giver has run its course. Just maybe traditions have a life cycle like marketing campaigns. I don't know. Really, I don't. But what I do know is that some things are more important than others, and only a few things are absolutely essential.It turns out that throughout the centuries and across cultures there is remarkable agreement on what these few essential things happen to be. We may call them by different names like commandments, natural law, the Tao, or even absolutes. But among others all agree on things like the essentialness of kindness, the necessity of honesty, the preciousness of life, and the notion that there is right and there is wrong.Throughout time people have argued against their relevance or even their existence, but that's like arguing against water. It doesn't matter if we believe in water or not. Water is still essential.In the same way these few things bring life to life. It's more than worth the time for us to consider and possibly rediscover what these few things are. We will be better for it, and we will do better by it.Only a few things are absolutely essential. And it turns out that throughout the centuries and across cultures there is remarkable agreement on what these few essential things happen to be.