What matters above all

What matters above all is to celebrate joy for the eyes and the mind. It is much easier to terrorize than to charm.   - Rene Magritte    

When the world seems to be crashing down on us from all sides, it can be hard to fathom that stories about “little people” or non-Earth-shattering events are worth spending time on. As Natalya Antonova says in our article on her newspaper in Karelia, “people get used to the idea that their lives are unremarkable and typical."

But what if it is precisely at times like these that we benefit most from focusing on the small, hidden, seemingly unremarkable stories that surround us? What if, as the writer Thomas Merton mused, we need to “come alive to the splendor all around us and see the beauty in ordinary things”?