In the past, recent past, when I would step into a pocket of high pressure, lightness of being, I figured it was nostalgia or shrugging (however necessary, however divinely permitted) of the current situation, step backward, step outside.

but today I am in the car headed toward Nashville for Andrew & Lindsay’s wedding all by myself.  working out the inward working of Christ.  crowned heavy with a gratitude and faith with which my flag of soul is pulled out from under the stone and lifted into air thin, and taking.  lightness of being surely is no better than weight.  I value suffering like I value exultation, and I exult because this lightness is not backward or shrugging / not a year-and-a-half ago / but is whatever “next” is.  yes.  oh my gosh.  somehow it’s time for lightness again, but a new kind, an infinitely weightier kind, that allows wisdom and visceral suffering (a twisting
of gut).  or, requires them, and

is richer
than much fine gold, than gold filigree, than gold leaf or gold plating
worked crisp with curls and scrolls.

there is nothing about my life that You have mismanaged.  only goodness is
given to me, I understand again.

it is better than I can say
to be able to say, “this is a new time,” or
“this is another country.”

(these little yellow flowers live out here in the grass
between the halves of the interstate
where no-one cares for them
except God.)