The Weight of a Whisper

When I was seven, my grandmother kept a small, smooth stone in her apron pocket. She told me it was for the moments when the world felt too heavy to carry alone. She didn’t pray in the way the adults on television did, with loud voices and grand gestures. Instead, she would simply press her thumb against that stone, close her eyes, and let out a breath that seemed to empty her of all her worries. I used to watch her, fascinated by how she could turn a piece of gravel into a vessel for her burdens. It was a quiet, private transaction between her and the invisible. As an adult, I realize she wasn’t looking for a miracle to change the weather or mend a broken fence; she was simply looking for the strength to keep walking until the sun went down. We spend so much time shouting our needs into the wind, forgetting that the most profound things are often those we hold in the palm of a hand, unsaid.

Luis Alberto Poma Criollo has captured this exact, quiet surrender in his image titled A Touch of Faith. It reminds me that even in the middle of a busy city, there is always room for a private conversation with the infinite. Does your own quietude look like this?