Things are such a mess these days. Could it be possible to step aside from the whole thing, go somewhere where there is peace and contentment and tranquility? Lately, though, I’ve been worrying about all the guilt we are supposed to carry as we navigate the mess we’re in, as if it’s all our fault, each one of us. Wouldn’t it be great to get away from feeling guilty all the time?

Do you ever think about time passing? We all do, for sure, maybe more as we get older. I remember how I would stand on a certain bridge over that little creek where we spent our summers, thinking how that strikingly beautiful water under my feet would never return to this place and to this moment. Though I couldn’t put anything like this in words, I understood, quite deeply, I could not control time. I could not gather in this beauty, this sparkle, this murmuring, and bring it back again. There it went, gone forever.

Do you know anyone who radiates joy? Could that be you? Could that be me? Oh no, I confess quickly, I might like to be that person, but I’ve got a long way to go. N. T. Wright has said he thinks there is a serious lack of joy in our world today, precisely because we’ve bought into the lie that the modernist dream will make all things perfect. And, of course, as we look around, we are hugely disappointed. This is surely not the dream for which we’ve bargained. Joy seems crushed by so many forces beyond our control. How can we possibly find joy again?  

The great Jeremiah provided my daily reading a few days ago:

THESE are the words which came to Jeremiah from the LORD: Go down now to the potter’s house, and there I shall tell you what I have to say. I went down to the potter’s house, where I found him working at the wheel. Now and then a vessel he was making from the clay would be spoilt in his hands, and he would remould it into another vessel to his liking.

We’ve been hearing so much lately about the end of this or the end of that. We hear often, for example, that this will be the end of democracy, the end of America. We hear all kinds of predictions about the end of the planet. We hear about the end of education, the collapse of our universities, our schools. We hear often about the end of the church, the Christian way of living. We listen to all of this with some measure of fear, perhaps a little skepticism, but something is at work out there to keep us on edge.

In 1986 the great twentieth century American novelist Walker Percy, when asked what worried him most about the condition of the world, answered with this:

Probably the fear of seeing America, with all its great strength and beauty and freedom. . . gradually subside into decay through default and be defeated . . . from within by weariness, boredom, cynicism, greed, and in the end helplessness before its great problems.

He then adds: “The West [is] losing [its way] by spiritual acedia.”

After a bout with the foggy brain of Covid, I’m back writing this morning. I know this about myself: I need to write. For a time it seemed like I couldn’t get my bearings, focus, the words to say anything. But then, as I start out this morning, I realize the problem is bigger than Covid. We all desperately need new guidance, new instruction, new energy to make our way down the foggiest of paths. Our society needs a new source from which to get our bearings on common sense.

I’ve been trying to spot the good things in life and in our world. That’s not an easy task for people like me, always reaching for more of whatever I think will make things better. I’m a big scrutinizer of myself, noticing all the flaws, the limitations, the failures, the covered-up selfishness. I think we’re doing that same thing in our communities, our churches, our organizations, our nation. Patience has never been my strong suit, but I’m in a moment in my life where I’m trying to figure out how simply to accept myself and the good things that God spreads around lavishly.

Ann Voscamp prays an honest prayer in her extraordinary new book Waymaker. In this scene, she is confined to a hospital bed, the result of unexpected heart failure. The situation is alarming for her. In the stillness of the moment, she talks honestly to her God:

Maybe, in some ways, I don’t really trust Your ways—don’t trust Your ways to take care of me, don’t trust Your ways to grow my joy large because Your ways aren’t just higher than ours; sometimes Your ways seem [to] take us down a road of suffering.

Philosopher-historian Charles Taylor, in his masterful book A Secular Age, remarks that we sometimes catch a glimpse of “what life should be like.” We sense there is a “place of fullness” out there, but we also know, we are not there yet. Life seems so hard. Things break apart. We are so divided. We can’t agree on anything, what is true, our common good, a center from which we might begin to build something new. We can’t even come together, in simple, common-sense conversation, to talk about how we might rebuild our families, organizations, communities, our nation. If we really do sense what life should be like, why can’t we have this conversation?

My mother taught me not to be a self-promoter. Whether I succeeded is for others to judge, but I know what I am about to do leaves me a bit sheepish. I want to recommend my own book: Sing Us A Song Of Joy: Saying What We Believe In An Age Of Unbelief. You might think about it for your summer reading list, or perhaps as a recommendation or gift for a friend. We’re all building those lists right now for the long summer evenings. This book might be just the ticket.

I remember well the long, dark winters in Spokane where we lived for many years. I remember as well such delight on that first morning when the crocus broke through the barren ground. And then the daffodils, oh the daffodils, in all their glory. I’ve always tried to watch for the signs of new life, though winter, bleak and endless, so often keeps us in her clutch.

In my reading this morning, Henri Nouwen, in his book Life Of The Beloved: Spiritual Living In A Secular World, used a phrase that’s had me thinking all morning. Is it possible, he asks, that “the fruitfulness of our little life” could possibly make a difference in a world swirling out of control? The fruitfulness part attracted my attention first. Is my life really fruitful? If not, how might I become more fruitful? That’s certainly worth thinking about.

The renowned twentieth-century Benedictine monk Thomas Merton tells a story that has lingered with me for several years:

In the old days, on Easter night, the Russian peasants used to carry the blessed fire home from church. The light would scatter and travel in all directions through the darkness, and the desolation of the night would be pierced and dispelled as lamps came on in the windows of the farmhouses, one by one.

The young women of Ukraine, holding their babies, crouched in dark basements and dank subway corridors, strong, articulate, courageous, determined, these women just may change the world as we know it. As these pictures and testimonies soak into our minds and souls, nightly, just perhaps, against all the terrifying odds of brutal power, the world may be forced to rethink what power is all about. In the midst of all the talk of a collapsing civilization, surely these images give us a glimpse of where we ought to be headed.

At dinner the other evening, one of our dear friends, after a sigh, mused: “We just don’t know where all of this is going. We are living with just so much uncertainty.” We were talking about Ukraine, of course, and the brutal use of lethal power, the likes of which we have not seen in the lifetimes of most of us. What can we do? What should our leaders do? What in the world will the leaders of this horrifying assault do in the next days and weeks and years? Where is our world headed? Yes, indeed, we live with profound uncertainty.

The other day I ran into a William Butler Yeats’ poem I have loved for many years. Here the great poet suggests what it feels like, unexpectedly, suddenly, to know, without a doubt, we are blessed. We are overcome with great happiness. In my language, this is what it feels like to be struck by grace. When this happens, we discover, not only am I blessed, but I can bless. To be blessed changes everything.

I’ve been reading a lot of poetry lately. I was educated on poetry, foundationally from the Bible, where one finds the greatest poetry of all time, but later too, in my early teaching life, where I taught poetry, both old and new, from Chaucer and Shakespeare, Milton to Wordsworth, to the dark moderns John Berryman and Robert Lowell and Sylvia Plath, or the more hopeful voices of T. S. Eliot, Denise Levertov, Theodore Roethke, William Stafford, Wendell Berry. I wrote poetry for years.  

Buckle up! I ran into an image the other day that blew my mind. It may blow yours too. You may find yourself resisting the image at first, a bit too mystical perhaps, a little overblown, but stay with me. The question posed in the image is this: No matter where you are on your spiritual journey, is it possible to go so much deeper?

I was asked recently by a group to tell a story from childhood that continues to shape my spiritual life. I quickly thought of that moment, early one morning, when I heard a murmuring coming from beyond the cracked door to my parents’ bedroom. I nudged the door forward and peeked guiltily into the semi-darkness. I saw my father on his knees, beside the bed. Edging a little closer, I thought he was talking to himself. The speech seemed intense, earnest, calm but urgent. Suddenly it dawned on me that he had come into the presence of his Lord, his friend, his companion. The suspicion sunk deeply that he did this every morning.