God in the Dunkin' Line
Finding Spirit in small blessings, selfless prayer, and everyday winks of grace
Do you ever feel like God—or Love, the Universe, Jehovah, Spirit (insert name here)— is winking at you? Or wrapping their arms around you?
I feel that way quite often, especially lately.
It seems that no matter how bad things get, Spirit always has a way of saying, Hey kid, I’m here. Be still and know that I am with you. Steady now.
Sometimes this manifests in profound ways—visions coded as dreams, déjà vu coded as seizures, and intuition coded as coincidence. Other times, it’s simpler.
Like today. I went to buy flowers for my great-grandmother’s 100th birthday. Afterwards, I decided to swing by Dunkin’ Donuts. Wanting to keep my kindness streak going, I texted my aunt to see if she wanted a coffee too.
And then, the person in front of me paid for our order. Just like that, I was blessed. And no, I don’t chalk that up to chance. Multiple times, I’ve had rough days, usually about love or family, and I’ve come through that same Dunkin’ line. On those days, something always seems to happen. An order slip-up. My coffee free. A cashier—“This one’s on us today.” As silly as it might sound, God knows how much my coffee means to me. It’s my one small splurge, the habit that helped me kick harsher ones. And it’s Spirit’s little wink and nod: Hey kid, I’m here. Be still. Chin up. I got you, boo.
Coming from a stringent religious background saturated with evangelism, I’ve struggled—and written a lot—about organized religion over the years. I’ve dabbled in various alternative spiritualities, from witchcraft to an unconventional form of Islam akin to Sufism. I’ve now landed in a loosely Buddhist-oriented, open-source, yogic–esoteric relationship with God.
Some of what I write is heavy. Some of it’s light.
But all of it’s honest.
If you like that kind of space, I’d be honored to have you here.
These days, my spiritual rituals usually look like me lying in bed at night, having a direct conversation with the higher voice within. It’s not quite a voice like my internal monologue; it carries more wisdom than I do. It knows more of the puzzle than I do. It shows me things in dreams, in visions of the future, that I can’t possibly chalk up to chance. It blesses me at the Dunkin’ line and at the cash register at my store, in so many small moments that I forgot to write down or speak about.
On the nights I pray, I forget when I stop talking. At some point, I drift off, wrapped in the ever-loving warmth and comfort of something greater than myself—something that carries me when I can no longer carry my own thoughts and emotions. Something that dries my tears and holds me when no one else is there to.
There’s also an important element to my prayer ritual I don’t think everyone does: selflessness. I often make sure to pray for others. Not from a lens of “I need something from them” (though I know God already sees my selfish wants), but from a lens of “they need something from God”—and guidance for me on how to show up for them. I pray for the security of my friends, family, and lovers. I pray for peace, for resilience, for clarity, for guidance, for growth. In these acts of selflessness, I find myself closer to God than ever before. That’s where the real magic and movement in my life begins.
We live in a society where selfishness is easy—a world we’ve designed that is now designing us. Autonomous selfishness, if you will. But selfless prayer breaks that cycle.
There’s an old Christian hymn I still sing, mainly just the refrain:
Count your blessings, name them one by one Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.
Bing Crosby sang something similar:
When I’m worried and I can’t sleep I count my blessings instead of sheep And I fall asleep counting my blessings.
Here in the South, we say, “Have a blessed day.” For me, that actually means something. We really should count our blessings. We really should wish blessings on others. Spirit has a powerful way of uplifting us in the moments when we need it most. But how often do we pay attention?
It’s easy to slip into a secular mindset and leave everything up to chance, especially for those of us scorned by dogmatic religion. But to miss the spiritual beauty of life—the beauty that moves all around us—is to miss one of the fundamental cores of life itself.
We are, in the words of The Police, spirits living in the material world. Don’t passively pass through life without tuning in to the finer melody of things.
Blessings don’t always roar; sometimes they wink back at you in the condensation of a plastic cup.