This is the art of drawing breath,
of making visible what has been invisible.
This is a pragmatist’s guide to faith.
This is singing when you don’t know how to pray.

Welcome to this space; know that you are not welcome here.
We are all trespassers; we are not welcome here.
This universe would like nothing more than for you to not exist,
and the proof is in the history you live; tell me this:
what are the odds that this planet would appear
in just the right place, with the right atmosphere and geology?
What are the odds that life would suddenly spark
in the darkness, from the carcass of this planet to a colony?

What are the odds that this anomaly would spread?
What are the odds it would survive and stay ahead
of volcanic eruptions, meteorites and earthquakes;
the first drum, first beat, first rhythm, first break,
first time the notes broke to form a system?
You could hear the first melody, the first multi-celled organism.
What are the odds this first environment to harbor life
would meet another; maybe fight or maybe harmonize?

But either way it would evolve.
So what are the odds it would evolve to walk and not crawl?
To fly but not fall? To survive every single mass extinction?
What are the odds of your existence?
How many generations did it take to make you?
How many plagues, wars and massacres conspired
to uproot your family tree and salt the earth around it?
How many ancestors carried your fire?

How many farmers made it through the famine?
How many runaway slaves got away?
How many soldiers conscripted deserted?
How many times did that chain almost break?
How did your great-great-grandparents meet?
What was the song playing when you were conceived?
Is it inconceivable: the happenstance inherent in
this life you have inherited?

Some see the elegant complexity of bodies,
or the natural beauty of the planet and they say it’s godly.
There’s got to be divine intelligence behind it all
because the odds that you would make it on your own are so small.
But me? I see millennia trying to murder you.
I see a thousand generations of pain and fear.
I see struggle inscribed into your skeleton.
And I see you still here.

Ancestor armor. Star-crossed survivor.
An unwelcome guest in a hostile environment.
Defiance is your birthright, fire from the first time
you drew breath, a smile on your face.
Welcome to this space; know that you are not welcome here.
We are all trespassers; we are not welcome here.
So if our drawing breath is blasphemy, sin or treason,
let’s keep drawing breath until there’s nothing left to breathe in.
We are the codes that our ancestors still speak in.