The greatest of these

In a recent LITD comment thread, the question of whether there is something ostentatious about the fact that Chick-fil-A closes on Sundays came up.

My view, as a Christian, is that it is a perfectly natural thing to do. There is encouragement among a considerable swath of society for businesses to close on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and Chick-fil-A's practice seems like a natural extension of the idea. We are to rest on the seventh day, give it fully to reflection, prayer and the delight of our loved ones' company.

Granted, firefighters, police, hospital emergency teams and the like (think armed forces overseas) have what might be argued as a moral obligation to take shifts on Sundays or the above holidays, but it's always good to hear of instances of the institutions employing them making the effort to imbue their work environments with some measure of the cheer they'd be enjoying at home.

This points up the indispensability of each and all of the Three Pillars  and - excuse the mixing of metaphors here - their being inextricably entwined. A sole focus on the free market might lead one to view a Sundays-off policy as silly, as rendering one's business vulnerable to chicken-sandwich competitors who stay open from early to late seven days a week. Of leaving profits on the table.

It's a similar argument to the one sometimes lobbed at conservatives about trashy entertainment, even pornography. Is there not a market for it? Who is to begrudge the purveyor a prosperous life just because some find his product distasteful?

On the other hand, we encounter the question of choice on the part of someone who opts for an employee role in the web of economic exchange. The mindset that confers primacy on maximized economic advantage is not only going to be inclined to see a Sundays-off policy as self-limiting, but is going to see companies with heavy-handed management practices as merely utilizing the labor of sovereign individuals who have chosen to be where they are.

And one must concede that that is true, at least in isolation from all other considerations. A worker is free to leave an organization and on-board with one more to his or her liking at any time. It is the converse of a company taking a pass on one applicant and going with another during hiring phases. Moreover, the notion of a labor union, again, taken in isolation, fits with the free-market model. Workers, recognizing their strength in numbers, are perfectly within their rights to organize to present their case for higher wages or other work conditions. The results will be a matter of what the market will bear. The employer may not be able to find an entire new workforce with a requisite skill level without interrupting production, and accede to what's being insisted upon. (Where the labor union no longer fits into the free-market model is when it lobbies legislatures for market-distorting measures like a prevailing wage, or in the case of public-sector workers.)

We see an interesting development in the wake of Donald Trump's tweets about Amazon. Those with whom I tend to align (conservatives who have always found, and still find, Trump objectionable in the extreme) took a tack in responding that, in my estimation, left something important out of their consideration. Yes, Amazon has, as they argue, made acquisition of consumer goods exponentially more convenient, and has even, contrary to Trump's bloviating, been a financial boon to the US Post Office.

Joseph Schumpeter's signature concept - creative destruction - seems applicable here. That's another valid point my ideological kin raise.  Trump's noting of the impact on brick-and-mortar retail businesses seems borne of a nostalgia that seems oddly out of place with his boneheaded winners-and-losers worldview.

But tales abound of how Amazon's model comes at a cost. In recent months, I've come across a few articles about various Amazon distribution centers and office complexes in which depression and even suicidal tendencies are pervasive. Such stories are replete with tales of people crying at their desks, of urinating in bottles at their work stations, and of being disciplined for being off sick.

This example allows us to see that a sociocultural and, indeed, human context surrounds the purely economic level on which the they-choose-to-be-there argument rests.

Still, metropolitan areas around the nation are clamoring to be the site of Amazon's second headquarters, usually offering tax breaks and, in some cases, outright subsidies. Such is the continuing lethargy in a sizable swath of our economy (even as it, admittedly, is improving at present) that so many areas chomp at this bit thusly.

Our choices always exist against the backdrop of specific conditions, and sometimes the tradeoffs we face are mean. A whole lot of people, due to their specific situations, including educational levels, are going to have to face, should their city be graced with Amazon HQ2, choosing between a brutal work pace or continuing to make a far lower wage at some place among the rest of what's available in their municipality.

And then there is what the Amazon model of ever-faster delivery is doing to our collective psyche, our character. There was a time when we looked askance at instant gratification. What book, household item, or article of clothing is of such urgency that it must be delivered in the next few hours?

The question arises - or, at least, ought to arise: For what end are we doing this?

Here, we can expect another barb to be tossed our way from the left: Are you endorsing a collectivist solution, perhaps an official policy, a program to be fleshed out with legislation and regulations?

That's exactly what we don't need, and this juncture in the conversation brings us back to the indispensability of each of Three Pillars.

We are indeed designed to live as a community, one that extends from family to neighborhood to nation and, ideally, the species - but based on a common, even if necessarily broad, notion of transcendence. This assertion was at the core of the visions of such great conservative thinkers as Russell Kirk and Richard M. Weaver.

We'd do well to reflect on what Samuel Johnson understood:

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

And he did not mean near-instant delivery of more consumer products.  His sense of happiness is akin to what C.S. Lewis means when he employs the term "joy":

Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure.  It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.

Only a home full of those who love each other can spur its inhabitants to close in on that for which the dwellers long.

Conservatives, then, differ from leftists on the one hand, when it comes to the idea of what makes for the bonds of community, and from libertarians on the other when it comes to a consideration of the proper use of freedom. In fact, a libertarian would likely argue that it's improper to speak of a use for freedom, that freedom is an end unto itself.

But there is one correct use of freedom, and that is to freely give ourselves to Him who granted us our freedom and sovereignty in the first place. And that begins with giving ourselves to each other, starting with the people under our roof. It's there we are to learn the model of being able to maneuver through this world relaxed, with our defenses down, a condition that we know that, due to our fallibility, we can't expect to enjoy perfectly.

But that space behind the front door is where it can come closest to perfection if everyone therein is committed to seeking it.

That's why Chick-fil-A closes on Sundays. As tasty as chicken sandwiches and waffle fries are, and as indispensable as profits are, there must be an agreed-upon sense of the sacred, of us pointing each other toward that which satisfies our inescapable yearning.

Somebody somewhere must start making time for love.