Last night my family anxiously waited in a group chat with my sister as she was stranded on the side of the 35 through Texas, sidelined from her drive home by the massive tornado plowing through.  While we worried and waited until she was okay, I was glad we could be with each other even if only in a little corner in the digital cosmos. We were, we are; we belong together.

Do you belong to the Mormon Lit Blitz? Now’s the time to give it a go.

The words “You do not belong here” prompt a beautiful sacrament meeting talk about inclusion.  Three traits of youth who stay engaged in the religion they grew up in.  A catholic cardinal was remembered for the way he reached out as he  preached “The only thing we take with us when we die is what we have given away.”

A song that reaches out to remind you “it is well.”

A centenarian sees footage of her younger self dancing for the firsttime, and remembers a place where she belonged.  Kindergartners belong in a school that designed to play to their natural impulses. Two women in Minnesota go above and bake beyond their expectations to express love and empathy for a young woman dying of cancer.

Happy 25th Birthday to the Hubble. Isn’t it fabulous we belong in the midst of these images of spectacular stars?

Speaking of stars, this week’s first draft poem is written by Kel and inspired by the 102 year old, former dancing star.

Look not on the wavering whisper
Or the crumpled tissue skin
that my hundred year old heart
is currently wrapped in.
Look on the new found treasure
The rhythm and the grin
That share the perk past and shrunken now
When I say I’ll get up and do it again.
Look at the garden sleeping
the ground, the creeping chill
The seeds of me long planted
bloom and shimmy still.