I spent a lot if time with prayer today.

Morning yoga at home.  A Catholic funeral mass, followed by a burial.  Dusk yoga at a local studio.  And all the rides in between.

The meditations during my practice and while in church were expected.  But the ones in the car threw me.

On the ride to services this morning an alarm went off.  It was to alert me that the passenger was not wearing a seatbelt.  Which was odd, because the passenger seat was empty.  It didn’t continue for very long and I didn’t pay much attention to it.

So happens, a dear friend needed a lift to the cemetery following mass, so she rode with me.  She fastened her seatbelt and no alarms sounded.

The same was true for our shared ride to a favorite eatery around the corner for lunch afterwards.

On the lone ride home to Billerica, however, the passenger alarm once again dinged.  This time I did notice that my very (very) light wallet was in the seat, and I thought:

Maybe, it’s just a really sensitive sensor.

Though, I’ve been driving this car for more than a month now, and have weighed that passenger seat down with the likes of two laptop bags weighing more than ten pounds each, and that alarm’s never gone off on it’s own before.

But, again it happened, and again I let it go, and the day faded into dusk.

I came home, kissed Briggs, visited with my father in-law, made dinner, kissed Ken, and then got ready to head to yoga.

As I pulled in two-minutes late – just as I was about to cut the engine and dash into the studio – the alarm again alerted me to the necessary safety of the empty seat.

But this time, even though the clock was trying to fool me into rushing, I stopped.  I smiled.   And I found no harm in believing that perhaps today there was precious cargo riding shotgun.