In the before times, Ash Wednesday always made me feel holy. When I was a bored, Catholic child, I didn’t understand why I ought to be ceremonially soiled in a dim cathedral on a weeknight, but as an increasingly disillusioned evangelical adult on the way to agnosticism, it was the only holy day that made any sense to me. “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

Looking through the window, the Café could be any top-rated fine dining restaurant—chatter and warm light spilling through the kitchen window into a dimly lit dining room, the servers dressed head-to-toe in black uniforms, and the half-dozen kitchen staff wrapped in aprons, non-slip shoes, and gingham pants. Yet, as anyone here will tell you, this is not a normal restaurant.

Why shouldn’t this green place of feathery black be sacred? Why not follow the signs? Why not imagine healing as a gift from friends, leading you gently with sound and wings?

It's January, a new year. With it comes the familiar exhortation to start over, to change, to improve, to adjust. What if instead of dismissing yesterday as something to re-do, we steady our eyes to see this day completely?

Call it the romanticism of Taylor Swift season, or how a crisp chill clears one’s mind, but October is a time for change.

In my gospel of skin, proximity replaces the pulpit. The curtain between holy and unholy spaces has been torn, the chasm between podium and pew made irrelevant. To be where the people are is to be in the presence of God—on the street corner, in the cocktail chatter, laughing at fart jokes, and crying in parked cars.

With 15 minutes until curtain, a huddle forms in the men’s dressing room. “One foot in for the ones still sick and suffering.” The group recites the serenity prayer, says amen, and streams into the stage wings to prepare for their entrance.

Explore our lives, days, and minutes through the lens of shifting. Consider what is challenged between projects, professions, and spiritual spaces, and wonder, on the journey from one to another, what we might choose to keep or leave behind.

All that you’ve poured into your darling has not been in vain, because it brought you here: the perfect moment to let it go.