The greatest saints in the world

And listen, not to get too existential, but that’s sort of all there is to this whole being alive thing, right? We are on Earth for a while. We occupy certain spaces. We meet a bunch of people and make a bunch of decisions that impact both those people and a whole lot of others whom we’ll never meet. And through it all, we get the choice of making ... See more

At their root, every single tragedy is either a reminder the ways that life is unbearable for so many or a news flash that for many somebodies out there, life just became increasingly more unbearable. Life was either already too impossible or it suddenly became more impossible. Some of us experience relatively few moments when the news of increased... See more

What good is making life more bearable in your little corner of a world on fire? Quite a bit, actually.

More than anything, though, people talked about what has been necessary for them to stay and build in any given place— namely, the love, support and welcoming embrace of fellow builders. I heard one tribute after another to the kind of people that make places-of-varying-degrees-of-bearability more bearable.

Our emotional experience of a place is never the true, actual reality, but that doesn’t mean those feelings don’t matter.

I’m not out here to shame anybody who is more fatalistic, who feels the call to ring alarm bells, to shout the direness of this moment from the rooftops. That’s an important part of social change. Alarm bells don’t ring themselve... See more

all of our righteous fury will mean nothing if those of us who live in places that are increasingly unbearable don’t take it on ourselves to make it easier for those around us to stay and build.

Wherever you are, wherever you land, whatever stage of shared inhumanity you find in that place, there will be a better world to be built. You are not called to save your neighbors, but in the course of living and working and dreaming, your life will intersect with many others. Many of those others will be tired, with good reason. Many will be scar... See more

That’s why there are no greater saints in the world than the long-term alarm bell ringers who are ready to teach every new angry-and-sad-would-be-world-changer who comes their way that, while the odds are high that this work is, in fact, worth doing and that together we are part of something bigger than ourselves.