The Meaning of Birth presents a dynamic struggle to articulate the beauty of our being born and other wisdom necessary to recover the metaphysics of being ‘pro-birth.’
In an old hand-written Jesuit journal and a couple of letters, guarded in the Sanctuary of Loyola’s historical archive in Spain, I found a story of grace, love of God, and generosity that my family lore had already forgotten.
The pope signed the decree on their martyrdom on his 86th birthday. It will allow the couple to be beatified, which is the last formal step before potential sainthood.
The ethical struggle is clouded by an institutional issue: according to the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, measures concerning the family are not the responsibility of Europe. Each state is supposed to decide sovereignly in this matter.
There are other domains of human life that I believe are best viewed as commons, as emergent, critical societal assets prone to careless destruction by unsustainable use, less tangible than pasture land, but in many ways, much more important in our daily lives.
One way to limit how much insanity one absorbs is to simply limit our exposure. But this is merely a stopgap. One needs interior fortification to navigate the maze of madness, and this fortification can and should range from the silly to the sublime.
