Being Catholic IS being part of a giant community. Whether you are an introvert, like me, or an extrovert you are called to interact with others.
In my 15 years as a home schooling mom, I have seen that many home schooling families (especially trads) have an isolationist mindset… this not only not Catholic, it is anti-Catholic because the church would cease to exist if every Catholic adopted this mindset.
We cannot show our kids an example of siloing our families and expect them to have any understanding of how to be Catholic- even if they memorize all the Baltimore Catechisms.
Everything around me is rotting, so i build. that is it, that is the whole reason. God built six days and rested one. he could have stopped at function, he could have given us eyes that only see useful things, but he made color. he made sunsets. he made the shape of a woman's back. he made the sound of rain hitting a dirt road at night. beauty was not an afterthought, it was the first thought, everything else came after. i build because the world is falling apart, and a man who does not build is just watching a fire. i lay bricks straight, i put flowers where nobody will see them, i sand wood until the grain is smooth enough to hold without a glove. these are prayers. and the man who says beauty does not matter has never built anything, he has only consumed, and consumption leaves you hollow. everyone i know who only takes has the same eyes, empty, always hungry, looking for the next thing to swallow. hold a hammer instead. hold wood. hold stone. make something that does not need you to survive, and then walk away from it, and feel what that is. that is the closest i have ever got to being alive, and i am not giving it back.
Maybe the biggest modern curse can be described as this: We have no appetite to destroy what is bad.
Aesthetically, logistically, culturally, militarily, everything.
Everyone lamenting the decline of Western culture should take an active part in preserving it.
Go to classical music concerts (the tickets are often surprisingly cheap), read classic literature (which you can find for £1-2 in secondhand shops) and go to art galleries (often free).
The only way to protect our heritage for the future is to appreciate it now and show others that they can too.
The squirrel has no well-founded reason to run from me, but it does. The robin, too, takes flight if I just amble by. Yet here foolhardy waits the burger, beneath my growing shadow