“a blessing for the lives we didn’t choose”

Blessed are we in the tender place between curiosity and dread,

We who wonder how to be whole,

when dreams have disappeared and part of us with them,

where mastery, control, determination, bootstrapping, and grit,

are consigned to the realm of before (where most of the world lives),

in the fever dream that promises infinite choices, unlimited progress, best life now.

Blessed are we in the after,

forced into stories we never would have written.

Far outside of answers to questions we even know to ask.

God, show us a glimmer of possibility in this new constraint,

that small truths will be given back to us.

We are held.

We are safe.

We are loved.

We are loved.

We are loved.

-Kate Bowler