NeuroDivine

I went to IKEA in search of one bamboo box. Just one. The right size, the right fit. I came home with two—half the size, twice the story.

The market hall was a sensory fugue: fluorescent light, clatter, colour-coded chaos. I wandered, overstimulated and under-focused, trying to hold onto the shape of the box I’d imagined. It’s a familiar feeling—this dissonance between intention and environment. For those of us who live outside the neurotypical script, clarity often requires a pilgrimage. A little search becomes a long walk.

Staff members, kind and unhurried, helped me navigate the maze. Their presence was a balm. I didn’t find the box I’d pictured, but I found something better: two smaller ones that fit the shelf, and the moment, more gracefully than I’d planned.

It reminded me of the Rule of St Benedict—how the smallest container can hold the deepest silence. How structure, even when improvised, can be a form of healing. And how the body, with all its betrayals and adaptations, still knows how to come home.

Ireland teaches this too. The bog path that veers, the cathedral that echoes, the box that doesn’t quite fit but still belongs. We live in the half-size, the almost-right, the sacred detour.

Next time, I’ll bring a tape measure. But I’ll also bring the same openness—to rhythm, to ritual, to the unexpected grace of getting lost and being found.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

For the kindness of strangers,
the grace of small solutions,
and the quiet rhythm of unexpected clarity—
I give thanks.

For the body that adapts,
the mind that seeks,
and the soul that finds rest in structure—
I give thanks.

For the detours that become paths,
the boxes that almost fit,
and the sacred in the everyday—
I give thanks.

Amen.