There is Room for one More 

I have a thing about dots.

Not polka dots—although I happen to like those too.

I mean the dots that appear throughout a life. People, places, conversations, memories, ideas, circumstances, coincidences. Sometimes two completely unrelated parts of my life bump into each other and I can almost see the little line connecting them.

I love when that happens.

Sometimes the connection is meaningful. Sometimes it makes me wonder. And sometimes it is simply random and wonderfully fun to notice. Not every dot needs an explanation.

But together, the dots remind me that I am participating in this big world rather than simply passing through it.

I think we all have dots.

Maybe someone from your past unexpectedly reappears through a completely different circle of people. Maybe a conversation with a friend is echoed by something you read two days later. A place reminds you of a person. A song carries you back twenty years. A stranger says something you needed to hear—or simply something that makes you laugh.

Some dots last a lifetime. Others are there for a moment.

Some are people we love deeply. Others are people whose names we never know.

Some change us. Some delight us. Some are so ordinary we might miss them altogether.

There is no particular way a connected life is supposed to look. We don’t need enormous circles of friends, remarkable experiences, or a calendar bursting with activity. Our dots are our own.

For me, noticing them makes life feel bigger, fuller, and far less lonely. They remind me that my life can be small without being insignificant. I don’t have to be important to the whole world to be of value in the world.

I get to participate.

I get to know and be known. To experience places and ideas. To laugh and cry. To remember. To wonder. To love people and miss people. To cross paths with others who are doing all of those things too.

And I am grateful for the whole lot.

Maybe that’s part of what it means to gather glimmers—not pretending that every moment is beautiful or that everything happens for a reason, but paying attention to the life that is already happening around us and recognizing that we get to be part of it.

So I hope you’ll notice your dots too.

And if one of those dots holds a story you’d like to share, there is room for that here.

Maybe it’s a story about a person, an animal, faith, travel, friendship, family, an unexpected kindness, something you learned, something you created, or a moment that simply stayed with you. It doesn’t have to fit neatly into a category.

We’ll find the room where it belongs.

So, bring your story to the porch.

And bring your people too.

There is always room for one more.