5 good reads for you

The mid-week offering (ok, more than 5)

For those of you who are new to The Holy Labor, welcome! I’m delighted to have you here. Generally I publish twice a week: an essay on Saturday and a round-up of others’ “holy labor” on Wednesday. Books, articles, poetry, prayers, podcasts, artwork—anything I’m loving lately. 

Let us know what you enjoy from this gathering of good work. I hope you might share with a friend, too. Always free, thanks to the paid subscribers who make this work possible.

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1. If the end of the school year has you feeling tender: “All of us mothers, unmoored by the oceans of liminal space we travel with our children. All of us mothers, holding tenderly the socks or the frozen milk or the lock of hair. All of us mothers asking, Weren’t we just right there?” On losing baby teeth from

   Krista Drechsel
   .

2. “Children on a macroscale have become a consumer decision, a luxury item not unlike an expensive mortgage or a Tesla: good for you if you can afford them, but don’t ask for help with that. The result is a collective lack of willingness to sacrifice for children that are not our own.” A must-read, whether or not you are a parent: Are Children A Good Idea? by Mary Ellen Mitchell at Comment. 

3. The past year brought me to Barbara Mahany, who is a kindred spirit with books on motherhood, nature, and the sacred everyday. Her light-filled latest on cancer at America Magazine will resonate with many of you: Living On Scan Time.

4. A poignant poem for those who take seriously Jesus’ call to go fish: Be Still and Know: Morning Fishing by Marjorie Maddox in The Christian Century.

5. Check out the brand-new book from my dear friend

   Haley Stewart's Newsletter
   : Women of the Catholic Imagination: Twelve Inspired Novelists You Should Know. My younger kids have been loving three of the books Haley sent our way from her work at Word on Fire: the clever Light of the Sacraments (that you read with a flashlight!), Saintly Creatures: 14 Tales of Animals and Their Holy Companions (a favorite of our resident animal lover), and Jérôme Lejeune: Saintly Geneticist, on the Catholic pediatrician who discovered the genetic cause for Down syndrome (immediately seized by our budding scientist). 

Question for you: what’s a kids’ book you love & have no shame adoring as an adult?

p.s. WAIT, ONE MORE: I shared this story on Instagram yesterday. Grab your Kleenex, from the brilliant Laura Yuen. “‘Life is a labyrinth’: Fighting stage 4 breast cancer, a Minnesota woman gets her wedding wish.” Includes this incredible stat: “women with breast cancer who have at least 10 good friends had four times the chance of surviving than those who had no friends. Friendships were more potent in the women's recovery than even a spouse.”

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