Helping Catholics in developing countries find work that affords them a livable local wage and allows them to work from home near their families. Opus Dei...Lux et Veritas
"Beauty will save the world." F Dostoevsky The modern world is so focused on the pragmatic. We measure. We quantify. We calculate. This is all well and good and we have gained much from so doing. But what about beauty? Or What about the things in your life that you do just for the sake of doing them? As You are not a machine for making money. You are a loved child of God, created in His image. The best things in your life are things that cannot be put in a spreadsheet. They cannot even properly be measured with all our modern technology. What can science tell us about a Rembrandt painting, for example? The chemical makeup of the paint. Perhaps how old it is. Does that tell us about the reality of the painting? Very partially. Oscar Wilde said that "all art is useless" He was suggesting that the best things are done for their own sake. Time with your family. Creative pursuits. Walks in nature. Prayer. As modern people, we like to break things down into categories. Here is beauty, here is truth, here is goodness... The ancient scholastic philosophers saw these all as participations in the same thing. The true good and beautiful are one. This is what Dostoevsky was talking about I think...that what will save us, what will rescue us, is a recapturing of, well, reality... The reality, the objectivity of beauty, goodness and truth. That we don't make these things.. We, if we are wise, attempt to participate in them. (the same way we didn't invent math, we discovered it's reality) The root of the word "salvation" is the same as "heal" (think salve for your skin) This is what we need, all of us...don't we? So I say here is to beauty. Here is to all the wonderfully useless things you will do just for the sake of doing them. Kiss your spouse Hug your child Comfort a friend Walk in the woods Create something for its own sake. Again, we are not machines. We are not flesh suit robots. We are given the gift of participating in all that is true good and beautiful in this short life. May we all remember this today.
