"This is not the end for me."

What do you want your life to feel like?

Lately I’ve been asking myself, “Is this what I want my life to feel like?” I’m not sure why I started, or when. But let me tell you, when that thought flits across my consciousness, I often put my phone down and walking outside.¹

My friend Sam has been riding a Greyhound bus for days on end this week. She’s been sending me play-by-plays about schedules, delays, and seatmates. I go to bed and she’s in Memphis. I wake up and she’s made it to Chicago. It’s a small thing, but whenever time her name lights up my phone, I have a tiny zap of I want my life to feel like this - invested in the journey, following the route until I know you’ve made it home.

I guess I’m just trying to listen. To attend to the details.

I want my life to feel like putting work aside to walk to the neighborhood taqueria with Cal before he starts his summer job and listening while he explains the differences between cumbia and reggaton and corridos.

I want to wander out at dusk and pull weeds for an hour.

I want to have my kids’ backs, and make sure they know it.

I want to wear Men’s polo shirts, apparently.

I want to think hard about what we owe each other, and figure out how we might spend our short lives paying down the debt.

I want to live inside the beauty of this unbearable world.

Last week was the annual pie banquet for the Jail Ministry of Elkhart County, where Cory is the chaplain (and keeps hiring my dearest friends as his staff, striking envy in my heart because he now sees them more than I do but WHATEVER, Jailchap!)

As you probably know, it’s one of my favorite nights of the year.

In honor of how I want my life to feel on this unseasonably warm Friday, I’m sharing this short video of Knesha and her chaplains, who hold her truth with careful hands and learn from the Light within her.

I can’t watch it without tearing up.