You know the one: That insignificant bit of nothing that landed on your back and BROKE EVERYTHING — every last metaphoric vertebrae. That one last thing you just couldn’t stand up to, not on top of a pandemic and civil unrest and a government sliding daily into fascism. Maybe it was a sick kitty (like SueBE’s Cindy) or a co-worker who simply refuses to “get it” (as Ruth has been dealing with). Maybe whatever broke you wasn’t little at all, but the sheer cumulative weight of a year that keeps getting weirder and more apocalyptic by day. (Coin shortage, anyone?)

The only way out is to keep moving, even when it feels performative. In the end, all we’ve got to live on is the promise of God’s grace, washing over us, making us whole again. And that’s not something you can summon at will. But it will come.

Look for it in all the small places,
in flourishes and gestures:
the holding open of a door,
the way someone says, “I’m sorry.”
See the clean white of it shining like
a shaft of sunlight, hitting you with
miracle molecules, hiking your heart
so high, you can only bat at it, a balloon
tugged by wind. All that pulls you down
is illusory. The one real thing is waiting
to spin you out of your shoes and into
a stratosphere bright with possibilities.
Let go. Let God. Your soul knows the way.