“First house and wife and an ox for the plough.”
Hesiod, Works and Days
I think I am not alone in feeling unsettled these days. I experience a subtle, low-grade but constant stress, a sense of foreboding that tends toward fear. Where are things going in our nation and our communities, and what does it mean for me and my loved ones?
While remaining vigilant and appropriately engaged—and this can hard to do without losing one’s peace—I need to maintain an appropriate focus on the simple matters of my direct responsibility.
I think of a great Roman general who just kept working in his household even while there was upheaval in Rome. He knew that for now there was nothing he could do in the political sphere. So he simply continued to focus on the matters at hand. If the moment were to come when he could and should step into the fray, he would be ready. Regardless, there was always much to demand his attention. At home.
Focusing on the key human relationships in our life is not a sideshow. For most of us, it is the main way that each day we become the person we should be, and that we serve the broader common good.
It is a great consolation to me to remember a simple truth. If we are intentional and know what we are about, relationships can thrive in most any circumstances. Indeed, hardship is often precisely the kiln that forges relationships of the richest kind.
There is no suffering that is not an opportunity to grow in relationship. This is an astounding gift. And it should remind us that relationships grow when they are given priority, and when they are rooted in moral character, and what endures. These are certain and unchanging things.
Uncertain and changing times can serve to highlight this incomparable gift.
Hesiod (8th century B.C.) was a Greek contemporary of Homer, and likewise an epic poet. His Works and Days sketches the year-round work on a homestead.
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Thank you for saying what so many of us are thinking and feeling these days. You remind me to look around my home and be present right here. I am a wife and mother. This is my job and vocation. With God’s help, we will have peace and joy.
Amen, Margaret. Amen.
This is excellent; and so needed to be told today. Thank you.
You are very welcome!
Thank you. I needed the reminder.
I need the reminder too!
Dr. Cuddeback,
I have just discovered that a particular young man from one of the many particular dioceses in which I used to reside has discontinued his ministry which he had called “Iron Sharpens Iron because” leading was “tough”.
Would that a poet such as myself could make up something so blatantly ironic that the Author of All Creation could laugh more heartily than I am at this very moment about reports of such much cowardice.
As Sister Magdalena has been generous enough to refer me to this site, I have now seen fit to refer Brother Brian to your website, in kind.
I have not words.
Silence,
Daniel
Thank you, Daniel.
It is surely not without reason that courage has always be seen as a ‘cardinal’ virtue–as one of the hinges of the good human life. Sometimes, I think, we don’t realize how lacking in courage we are until we face certain things that are especially hard to ‘endure.’ To endure: the key act of courage. To endure suffering and sorrow in view of the good to be achieved. God give us all the grace to be more courageous.
Finish the race for the Red Crown. Got it.
Saint Paul is a pleasant reminder that none of us gets out of this alive, is he not?
“Stand firm as an anvil when it is beaten. It is the part of a noble athlete to be wounded and yet to conquer.” Saint Ignatius of Antioch
Don’t lose your head, Dr. Cuddeback.