Hi everybody.

This short segment is what we call for the good of the order.

It's something we used to do at the end of my sorority meetings, if you can believe that,

where someone would share something that they came across in the course of the week, a poem, a song lyric, a short story, that they found enormously helpful as they went about daily life.

And I wanted to pick up the thread because I am so often wowed by something I see in the world

that I want to bring back and hand off to you.

So every Friday we produce a short segment called for the good of the order.

Think of it like an audio greeting card, a thing to share with the people that you love around the country

who you don't get to see or talk to enough. A thing to discuss with the people you do see and talk to

on a more regular basis.

This is Kelly Corrigan Wonders for the good of the order. Oh, This week's go-to begins with a long thoughtful piece of feedback we received after an episode we released with Gia Tolantino. Gia is a writer for the New Yorker

and she wrote a book I really admire called Trick Mirror.

And this listener whose name is Micah Boyette, wrote us because Gia and I had mentioned something that touched a nerve with her and for good reason.

So first I want to read you Micah's letter to us with my great thanks for the care with which this

feedback was delivered and then I thought I'd share an excerpt from Micah's book.

Dear Kelly, I'm such a fan of your work and I so appreciate your thoughtfulness and

willingness to dig into big difficult conversations. That conversation

with April Lawson. I'm reaching out because this morning I listened to your most recent episode with

Gia Tolantino about what it means to be human in today's world. You two

touched all kinds of profound ideas I'm wrestling with as well and then you asked

what would you genetically alter in human beings to make us a better species?

Gia brought up the fact that there are no children born with Down syndrome in Denmark

...