My son sent me the TV series, “The Colony,” on DVD as part of my Christmas Present. This is a “Survivor Like” show that aired on the Discovery Channel. It is basically a group of people dropped into an area in LA that is imitating a cataclysmic event. The group of people are like the survivors of say a nuclear event and they are attempting to rebuild some kind of a life. The conditions are harsh but they are some very creative people who are making do with what they have. In one show, two stragglers came along who claimed to have lived in the warehouse before but had been gone for six weeks. I think the Colony is about 10 people. They decided to let the couple in and shared their meager supplies with them. However, the two new comers, ate more, showered too long, and basically disregarded the original colony’s guidelines for living in a harmonious and respectful way.

What hit me is how in this smallest of units to survive there had to be some basic guidelines that respected resources and each other or it just broke down quickly. The bottom line was, if you are not willing to live within the framework, we cannot allow you to destroy the Colony, you will have to find somewhere else to attempt to survive.

This concept has much larger ramifications. From family units, to organizations, churches, companies, communities and ultimately countries without some common commitments to basic structure and rule of law there is no hope of peaceful, productive and prosperous living. For groups of people to live in harmony there must be some basic framework to shape that group that all commit to or it breaks down.

Every group will have to develop those standards and be willing to let those who are not willing to comply find another group, church, company, or country to live in where they can choose to comply. The health of the group is more important than any one individual. The larger the group the more basic the guidelines would need to be.

Just pondering,

Scott