Benediction for the Heavy Heart
Good morning. I missed your “good” because a plane, because a truck, because a gun, because a cop, because a government, because a people suffering, because too many people suffering, because war, because famine, because some mornings it is so hard to rise, to wake, to be a self.
There is a pause here. There is a deliberate cessation. I want a cessation to the noise in my head, to the ache in the collective heart of this world. When I was young this seemed possible. . . .
I want your mornings “good,” your evenings “good,” all the late nights and sunrises and afternoons and moments pressed against the ticking glass of your life “good.”
Breathe. For yourself. For each other. Let us breathe in when others cannot. When we can do nothing else. Let us stretch ourselves open to embrace our friends, extend our bodies outward to anyone willing to meet us and even those we think may not be willing. Let us hold each other for this moment. For this blink of human existence.
—Mason Bolton, To Wake, To Rise: Meditations on Justice and Resilience