The crack of lightning or a falling tree may send us running. We worry about cracks in the ceiling and widening the road or fracturing the mind. Peering into a sidewalk crack, we see a dark-light. Our country struggles in a dark-light of pandemic exhaustion and fear. We lie between the old and new ways.

Even the tiniest flower can push through that crack. What an incongruous birth! Chaos and hope are the forever cycles of growth in mysterious places. Our national crack has the power to open my eyes. Your eyes. The crack lets in the light and air.

Like a flower, we accept what we are meant to do. Grow. As the poet George Swede says, the flower grows in the crack because “nothing else matters.” Decades later, the rapper Tupac Shakur wrote that the flower in the concrete breathes fresh air by “keeping its dreams” and owning what it is.

Like that flower in the cracks, I can own who I am without shaming others and raging at “them.” I can raise the petals toward the sky if I will open myself and live in hope. The crack is that liminal space of a transition, where our sadness starts to heal and we learn a new way. In transitions, the crack releases the darkness and births our wisdom.

Look for your flower in the cracks.
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