But

"Do not be self-sufficient but place your trust in God." Thomas a Kempis

I read it and the tiny conjunction jumps off the page and shakes me by the collar.

"I have buts of my own, you know," I think hard hoping that troubling trio hears the harshness of my mental tone.

But...

there it stands, unmoving,a fulcrum in this scale of a sentence

and I am unwillingly forced to see my self-protective disposition balanced against the alternative--trust in the Almighty.

But...it's not this heavy. It doesn't have to be unbalanced. I can be independent, self-sufficient. I can take care of myself.

And even as I say it, think it, I know the only truth in this line of thinking is that it draws me back to the center, back to the one word that both joins and separates.

But...