Sunday morning, those of us in the choir stand up and sing Lord, Make me an Instrument of Thy Peace. When we finish, we sit down in our chairs.

From the soprano section, I look out at the congregation and see changes in the air.There’s movement.

Dust particles float upward in the spire of sunlight that radiates down from the skylight. They jerk away from the chairs.

Our bodies displace the air and make the specks twitch away from where they were. The smallest motion creates rivulets of wind that toss the weightless fragments about.

Like the dust specks, we too move around, going somewhere. But where are we going?Where am I going?

Like the dust specks, I’m always moving. I’m also breathing, thinking, feeling, and sometimes making progress toward expressed aspirations and private internal goals.

Soaring specks move upward, smoothly at first and then swiftly change direction when a tiny draft pushes them to swirl around in circles or figure eights. Sometimes there’s a holding pattern and nothing moves. The specks slowly rotate in place.

Light reflects differently on various sides of the fleck of dust. Some sides reflect white from the beam of light. Others echo pale gray from the shadow.

In this motif, the atmosphere has no purpose. Nothing is predictable.

Today, little is accomplished for me either, even though I continue working on hard issues, not giving up. Instead, I take time to internalize, process thoughts and questions. I try and acknowledge difficult behaviors about me and challenging reactions of others.

We’re all in the midst of living. Like the dust specks, we exist in the present, bounced around by air and life, swirling in unpredictable patterns and changing in small and important ways.

This is not merely a plan. It’s real life. It’s my life.