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Pain and brokenness and loss and fear and violence and anger.

Listen, I don't believe I can deny these things, don't believe that my personal religion can start anywhere else but where I started, can begin anywhere but the awful small injured spaces of my youth.

So I believe in all these things, and then in walking out into the grass and wiggling your toes. Putting hands against rough tree bark and running fingers through streams and opening arms to the sky.

I believe in the utter danger and risk of humanity, in the ability of humans to become the personal monsters of other humans. And then I believe - against all logic - in reaching out to strangers and linking hands and dancing under moonlight. I believe in sharing meals you could barely afford and laughing together and closing your eyes in trust and refusing to fear whether they will open again.

Listen, I forever gasp for breath, my lungs broken from birth, but I believe in taking the deepest breath you can and diving into the ocean and spreading your arms as far as they can go and pulling back and moving forward through the waves.

That's it.