Throwing a cosmic dinner party.

Begin with the impossible.

I never thought it could happen, but … I was able to host a cosmic dinner party with Emily Dickinson, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, bell hooks, Empress Wu Zetian, Indira Gandhi, Cleopatra, Lady MacBeth, Princess Leia, Eleven, and Dorothy Gale.

Embody the miracle.

I would host this cosmic dinner party in a majestic castle on Fox Glacier in New Zealand. We would travel to it by helicopter, and a yellow brick walkway would connect the landing pad with the castle. A meal, prepared by Thomas Keller, would be served. Conversation would flow like sweet tea in a Georgia July. We would each have more questions than answers, having learned that wisdom brings questions. We would speak each other’s language. We would start the meal with a prayer.

Notice the echo.

This dinner party reminds me of the bigger than life moment when I completed my Ph.D. — the moment when my dissertation chair stepped out into the hallway outside the classroom where I waited while my committee conferred after my defense. The words she spoke, “Congratulations, Dr. Steedly” echoed with the harmony of a thousand choirs. It was as if I was in the glorious presence of all those — real and imagined — on top of the very same glacier I once stood in New Zealand. In that moment, I link arms with greatness. In that moment, I understand what I still did not know. In that moment, I learn I am stardust and steel. That was perhaps the first moment in my life where possibility became big enough to include me.

Carry it into the ordinary.

That moment forever taught me that the strength of ages is truly in our grasp. It is said we stand on the shoulders. I suggest we stand on the shoulders of the past, present, and future. We stand on the shoulders of the I am and the as if. We stand on the shoulders of the not yet. I find that comforting. To not be bound by what is, but rather be strengthened by what can be. That is the miracle.