That One Book.

One of my favorite things to do when traveling—besides finding the best local coffee—is to wander into small bookstores. The kind tucked into alleyways, covered in dust and memory. There’s something sacred about them. The smell of aged paper, the creak of a wooden floor beneath your feet, and the quiet reverence of people searching for something they didn’t know they needed.

It reminds me how wonderfully small and interconnected our world really is.

Think of it like your favorite pair of sneakers. When you first got them, they were snug—fresh, maybe a little stiff. Then life happened. You ran miles in them—literal or emotional. Maybe you chased your babies in them, hiked up temples, or wandered streets in a foreign country. Over time, those shoes stopped being just shoes. They became story holders.

Books are like that. Our lives are like that. We are like that.

Every moment we experience, no matter how seemingly insignificant, leaves a mark—like worn soles or highlighted pages. And yet, so often, we miss the depth of our own story because our minds are too busy chasing the next chapter.

While wandering a small bookshop near a school in British Columbia, I stumbled across a book that would stop me in my tracks: In the Heart of the Temple by Joan Chittister.

She opens with a quote from Henry Adams: “Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.”

The words hit like a gong in my chest.

How could a man born into 19th-century American legacy have such profound insight into both our past and our future? And how did his words find me now, in the middle of my own chaos?

Because my life is chaos. Loud, nonlinear, full of heart and half-finished thoughts. I live with a beautifully wired ADHD mind, which I spent 33 years trying to “fix.” Wishing I could be more orderly. More consistent. More quiet.

But something inside me is beginning to soften. Accept. And maybe, just maybe, chaos isn’t the enemy—it’s the beginning of something real.

Joan writes about simplicity in a way that stripped me bare:

“We own only what cannot be lost in a shipwreck.”

In the Western world, we’ve been taught to replace what no longer excites us. When something breaks or feels boring, we chase something new. A new phone, a new trend, a new life. We buy to feel.

But when was the last time we truly valued something out of necessity? Treated it as sacred? Gave it life, memory, and meaning?

I am guilty of forgetting. Forgetting that the most valuable things—time, presence, kindness, faith—cannot be bought. They’re earned, lived, and felt.

In a culture where convenience is god, we’ve lost reverence for patience. We want results, not roots. But to truly live, we must unlearn to learn again.

Joan ends the chapter with this line:

“If I knew the world would end tomorrow, I would plant an apple tree today.”

Let that settle for a second.

We think gratitude is a product of peace and order, but maybe it's chaos—raw, unfiltered, sacred chaos—that teaches us how to truly be grateful.

Maybe empty gratitude isn’t the result of not having enough…But of not seeing what we already have.

Funny, isn’t it? How chaos, simplicity, and a dusty old bookstore can lead you straight into the heart of the temple.