Brian Doyle: Love Is the Story and the Prayer That Matters Most

Photo by Molly

Love Is the Story and the Prayer

That Matters Most

We’re here for a little window. And to use that time to catch and share shards of light and laughter and grace seems to me the great story.

Your library is where the community stores its treasures. It’s the house that imagination built. It’s where all the stories that matter are gathered together and celebrated and shared... People come to it communally for something that’s deep and ancient and important beyond an easy explanation. Who you are as a town is in the library. It’s why when you want to destroy a place you burn down the library. People who fear freedom fear libraries.

The coolest most amazing people I have met in my life, I said, are the ones who are not very interested in power or money, but who are very interested in laughter and courage and grace under duress and holding hands against the darkness, and finding new ways to solve old problems, and being attentive and tender and kind to every sort of being, especially dogs and birds, and of course children.

But you cannot control everything... All you can do is face the world with quiet grace and hope you make a sliver of difference... You must trust that you being the best possible you matters somehow... That being an attentive and generous friend and citizen will prevent a thread or two of the social fabric from unraveling.

Love is the story and the prayer that matters most.

— Brian Doyle