Have you ever rolled out of bed one morning and felt like you’ve stepped into another world? Like maybe your feet wouldn’t hit the floor? Like maybe the walls had moved? Maybe the pictures need realigning? Yikes, maybe I need some strong coffee.

Early this morning, I was out for a walk—and oh my, what a chorus of birds singing lustily. I think they too were excited to be waking up on this beautiful morning. How else could they be singing—in harmony, with such distinctive voices, so exuberantly—if they were not, with me, gleeful to be alive?

I read this morning about the good shepherd. We sometimes assume we may skip over this incredible story because we don’t often hang out with shepherds. But I think Jesus wants to frame a whole new context for us. He wants to draw us into a place where we still can find green pastures and still waters. As I look around our world, this felt immensely appealing this morning.

The other evening I listened to something horrifying, disorienting, so deeply troubling. I found myself asking some of the most disturbing questions I have ever asked: What is real? What is true? How do we know? And what if what seems real, but is not, gets into the hands of those who want to do harm? What will happen when untruth gets our whole world in its grasp?

I think almost everyone, believers and non-believers alike, long to have an encounter with God. Think about those times you may have felt God stooping down into your little space. What was happening? Were there ways to encourage this visit to happen again? And how do we know about such things? Well, there are plenty of incredible stories from Scripture to help show the way. And there are amazing stories from throughout history, both ancient and current, that inspire us to be ready when God decides to come near.

The morning after Easter we hear the most amazing story: “About daybreak on the first day of the week, when the sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala and the other Mary came to look at the grave.” This is the beginning of an earthshaking story. The world will never be the same. The mystery of it all takes our breath away.

Can you remember a time when you were arrested by silence? Where all the frenetic movement of life suddenly paused? Where even the chattering of your busy mind grew utterly quiet, if just for a moment? Perhaps it was a mere sunrise after an unquiet night. Or maybe it was morning light streaming in the window after a long rain. You noticed the flowers from your open window. The birds were up early too. Nothing too spectacular here, I suppose, and yet you are simply swept up in the holy hush all around you.

Just as I was looking for God’s presence this morning, he came and stooped down very close to me. He came, as he often does, through some of the most magnificent words I could imagine. I am feeling these days, as we all are, so much sorrow all around us, sorrow in our weary world, sorrow as we notice how fragile our loved ones have become. Amazingly, I was presented, in my morning reading, with three different poems, each one lifting me out of sorrow and into song. I’ve been told this is how it happens. Somehow joy will blossom out of sorrow.

A blockbuster article appeared last week in The New Yorker with disturbing news about “The End Of The English Major.” I was an English professor. So is my son Mark. This article surprised neither of us. Mark has been giving me fresh reports from the trenches for some years now: “But, Dad, they’re just not reading good books anymore.” The article confirms that a whole generation of students has fundamentally tuned out the value of reading great literature. Universities have failed to make the case. Each one of us must pause to ask if this is a good thing, for students or for our civilization.

In my early morning prayer, meditation, and reading this week, I stumbled into Isaiah 55. I suddenly found myself wide awake. To begin with, I was stunned by the beauty of the writing. In all my literary training, great writing will always be concrete, specific, earthly grounded, no matter where it’s headed toward some profound truth. The rhythmic strategy of Isaiah builds toward dramatic statements about how God utters a word, but not until it is grounded in mundane details of daily life. That’s the way our faith should always be, isn’t it? The Bible teaches this even in the way it is written.

We find in this tender painting a couple coming together in the fields. It’s dusk, presumably after a hard day harvesting potatoes. They are praying. We witness humble reverence here, hands placed together, a sense of silence and stillness, heads bowed. Surely, they are giving thanks for the fruit of their labor, gratitude that they are able to work, thankful that God is present in their little place of life. We can almost hear the bells ringing from the church in the distance. This is a sacred place, where God enters into ordinary lives. This is a place of prayer.

I encountered a story one morning last week that touched me to the core. Jesus and his disciples decide to get into a boat and cross over the Sea of Galilee. And then,

I hope this doesn’t come off as presumptuous. I am sending to my blog readers links to the lectures I have just finished for a four-part series at our church, Valley Presbyterian Church, which I called Finding Joy. I would be mortified if this comes off as self-promoting or appears to call attention to me. It’s just that, after a great deal of preparation, study, reflection, writing, and prayer, I’ve come to feel this class has sharpened my thinking on joy. I hope that has happened to the curious, attentive members of the class. I want to share what I have learned to all of you on my blog.

On Wednesday evening last week I launched a four-week series at our church on what I call Finding Joy. Among other things I had to say that evening, I featured Vincent Van Gogh’s touching painting Old Man In Sorrow, painted in 1890, the year of his tragic death, apparently from self-inflicted wounds. He had sketched this weary old man in his chair a number of years earlier, but somehow, in this year of horrifying confusion and profound sadness, he was compelled to finish the painting. The old man is worn out, exhausted, perhaps close to the end. It was a self-portrait of sorts.  

Well, this morning we wake up to a new year. I’ve always loved this time of year, pulling out last year’s goals and writing new ones. I suspect I may be the optimistic type. Not always, but I try to focus on possibilities rather than the seductions of limitations. I try not to focus on what has been, as if my disappointments lock me into what must always be. We’ve been through a lot over the last year. I sense it’s time to turn the page. That’s where I begin this morning.

During Advent I am attracted to the story of Simeon. Though this story comes slightly later in the sequence of the stories, it fits so beautifully into the unfolding drama. The Simeon story is appealing because he too faces so many challenges, just as we all do, and yet, when Simeon holds the baby Jesus, he is overwhelmed with wonder. Everything now makes sense.

Now that the elections are over, are you breathing more deeply? Has your hyperventilating begun to calm down? Are you stepping back and beginning to get your life in order? I hope so. That’s what I’m trying to do. Perhaps now we can tackle the hysterical notion that nothing matters more than politics. I know I can be somewhat naïve here, but I have said for many years that politics doesn’t matter as much as we have imagined. I suspect there is something hollow in our society that has us frantically trying to fill it with something. Maybe now we can think in fresh ways what deserves our attention so much more than politics.

I am scattered right now. My calendar gets filled with all kinds of things. Worthy though each one may be, when the whole picture is added up, something gets sucked out of my soul. I’ve been thinking anew how God wants to lay claim of my life over how many years left out ahead. This is called discernment. I’ve been there before. I’m sure you have too. If we don’t think through this kind of thing, periodically, we remain forever sputtering about not doing what we’re supposed to be doing.

One of Van Gogh’s gorgeous Sunflowers (there are two series) hangs in the National Gallery in London; Claude Monet’s lovely Grainstacks is displayed in Potsdam, Germany; Johannes Vermeer’s ever-intriguing A Girl with A Pearl Earring finds its home in The Hague. What do these paintings have in common? Well, first of all, they are treasures in the history of great art, to be enjoyed by everyone, to help satisfy our deep longing for beauty. As C. S. Lewis once suggested, we long “to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” We find in beauty the “promise of glory.”

I think I want to be a Brit. After all, ancestral English blood flows in my veins. There was a family of Eatons on the Mayflower, who, though leaving England for a new land, were nevertheless pureblood English. You’ll find the Eaton name all over London, including Eaton Square, where former prime ministers, rock stars, and two James Bonds live.