5 pieces of wisdom we need right now
“The ephemeral art of care is your legacy”
For those of you who are new to The Holy Labor, welcome! I’m happy to have you here. Usually 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.
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A masterpiece of a commencement speech by Ken Burns. Essential for 2024.
This week, my marriage turned 18 (old enough to vote & smoke!), so I loved this hilarious, touching post by author Fredrik Backman about his wife: “Most people stop looking, stop being curious, get to an age where we just play everything safe. But she kept walking into rooms where she was lost, kept looking for new things to learn.” (Please tell me you’ve watched Backman’s hysterical viral speech on creative anxiety & procrastination?)
A beautiful essay on biophilia (love of nature) with a remarkable riff on the prodigal son parable: “Is the world itself angry for what we have done, for how we have squandered what has been given?” Biophilia: How nature invites us home by Alex Blondeau at Project Optimist.
After a bad homily, this is what I told my kids. From Shannon Wimp Schimdt at U.S. Catholic.
Can’t stop thinking about these words from
, inspired by Sister Corita Kent’s ten rules for the Immaculate Heart College art department:The ephemeral art of care is your legacy. No one will remember what you wore. Or even what you wrote, to be real honest. The money you made will feel complicated—whether it wasn’t enough or too much. But they will remember how you cared for them—your hands weaving their braid before bed, your kiss on their sweaty forehead, your voice lifted alongside theirs while you sing “Blackbird” in the car while driving along the Pacific Ocean and marveling at the sunshine. Even if your children grow long, spindly limbs and leave you in the dust, even if your father’s brain breaks and he grows ever quieter and sweeter, the care never dies. That’s your towering skyscraper, your giant abstract sculpture, your Nobel Peace Prize. Your grandest ambition will come true; at your funeral they’ll say, “She paid attention. She knew me. She laughed a lot and delighted in life, even when it was hard. She cared.” And that will be the whole damn thing.
I have read those words from Courtney Martin several times now and they continue to bring tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing ❤️ I always love your roundups!
Laura- can you explain what Ken Burns was getting at in this part of his speech. “There is no real choice this November. There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route. When, as Mercy Otis Warren would say, "The checks of conscience are thrown aside and a deformed picture of the soul is revealed." The presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems. When in fact with him, you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem, a worse affliction and addiction, "a bigger delusion", James Baldwin would say, the author and finisher of our national existence, our national suicide as Mr. Lincoln prophesies. Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.”
All politics aside I cannot understand what point he was making?