I want to propose a special kind of reading for lockdown, perhaps a perfect antidote for the anxieties of sequestration. It’s an ancient practice, much of it sparked by St. Benedict as he opened his great monastery at Monte Cassino in the sixth century. With a collapsing classical culture all around, Benedict believed the Christian life could not flourish without both reading and prayer. Along with work, these were his three pillars. We have much to learn from this enduring practice.

My son Michael had a dream the other night. He was driving his car, at quite a speed, only to discover he was driving backwards, in reverse. After slamming on the breaks a number of times, he realized he couldn’t stop the car. I get the feeling these days, don’t you? We’re driving backwards, out of control. It’s scary.  

I was out on Twitter Easter Sunday afternoon. Sharon and I had participated in the morning in a beautiful, though un-normal, worship service online. Our pastor, the Reverend O’Grady, preached a heart-felt sermon, our choir sang with beauty and power, Lisa Edwards’ organ was magnificent, as always. There was a lot on our hearts as we came to our screens that morning, a lot of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, boredom, loneliness. We came to this unusual altar with a deep yearning. And then, even from our isolation, we shouted out: Christ is risen, he is risen, indeed! And we meant it.

In his Friday column last week, David Brooks points to “an invisible current of dread running through the world. It messes with your attention span.” And then he adds: “I don’t know about you, but I’m mentally exhausted by 5 p.m. every day, and I think part of the cause is the unconscious stress flowing through us.” Yes, this thing is messing with us.

I love this painting, Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, painted in 1872, quite possibly the painting that launched the whole impressionist movement. It’s marvelous. Sharon and I first hung a print of this painting when we moved to our condo in downtown Seattle. The painting was like looking out those big windows, sometimes into the fog, sometimes out over the blue Sound toward the Olympics, over the city as it would wake up each day. We would watch the ferry from Bainbridge arrive very early in the morning.

I’m finding it hard to write these days. I suspect we are all having a hard time just thinking clearly. We still live, day after day, with sinister danger, a pandemic, a huge cloud spreading gloom on the horizon. Economic damage is not far behind. Do I see any sunshine I can report? Are the clouds beginning to break? What can I say?

It’s been raining in California, seems like for weeks. I know, I know, we need it. Thank God for the rain. But give me some sunshine now. I’m ready. Give me spring blossoms and birds. Let me imagine long summer evenings on the patio. Really what I need right now, what we all need, is some kind of certainty, clarity, assurance. Summer will come again, won’t it?

I woke up this rainy morning under a cloud of fear, not so much for my own safety, though there is certainly that too, but fear for our world, for the thousands who may be struck down with illness, for the millions who may be nailed with crippling financial loss. The world is out of whack. The clouds gather.  

I’ve been thinking about how my practice of reading the Psalms every day can possibly address the urgent questions these days. Name the issue: The looming, ever-dangerous coronavirus; the corrosive polarization of our politics; the hollowed out moral center of our society; threats to our financial well being, and on and on. I am totally alarmed that hatred seems to come from our lips so easily, no matter our position on things. Things are bad.

During my early morning reading the other day, a line leaped off the page from one of R. S. Thomas’s poems: “In an age of science everything is analyzable but a tear.” This is what I’ve been trying to say for years, but here, in one stunning image, this wonderful Welsh poet catches it all. I couldn’t shake this image for days.

I was reading this morning in Abigail Rine Favale’s stunningly beautiful book Into the Deep, the story of her “unlikely” conversion to Christianity, one that ends with a wholehearted plunge into the Catholic Church. This is my second reading, not something I usually do with this kind of book. It’s penetrating, wonderful.

We were with a group of people recently where someone remarked: “I can’t believe how much depression and anxiety and hopelessness seems loose among so many people, many of them our friends.” We are constantly reminded of the statistics, but we feel it close by as well.

I have always been attracted to poets who sense God’s presence in the surrounding beauty, in cool air as it touches our face, in water as it ripples across ageless stones, in a whiff of breeze across a lawn. The scene may bristle with arresting color; it may call out in the soft voice of a dove; it may arrive quietly as the moon rises over a field of wheat.

I’m back. A number of friends have asked me if I would ever return to my blog. There are lots of reasons I stepped back for a while. I’ve been intensely engaged writing my new book, now tentatively called Conversion: Drawing Nearer To The Heart Of God. In addition, Sharon and I had to take an unexpected pause to make our way through a rough patch with health in this past year. We believe we are healed and feeling better than ever, full of energy for what’s out ahead.

Last Sunday our choir at church sang this beautiful anthem: For the beauty of the earth, For the beauty of the skies. For the love which from our birth, Over and around us lies. Lord of all, to Thee we raise. This our joyful hymn of grateful praise. Then our pastor, the Reverend Jeff O’Grady, gave a fine sermon on the creation story from Genesis. What we learn in this familiar story is foundational: God created all of life. He cherishes life, from its very beginnings to its end. He created human beings, in his image, and set them free to enjoy an exquisite garden of surrounding beauty. He gave us beauty to enjoy.

I’ve been trying to enter the amazing Christmas story from the inside out. I think the story is robbed of all its power when we try to move the other way, from outside in. Perhaps what I am trying to do is see the baby Jesus the way Simeon saw him:

The Psalms never cease to surprise. You think the poem is giving it to you straight, and then it takes a turn, a twist in the road. Don’t go to the Psalms for Hallmark sentiment. We sometimes like to quote bits and pieces of the Psalms to suggest a kind of fantasy perfection. But that’s not the world of the Psalms. It’s not our world either.

I’ve been thinking a lot about joy. It’s kind of hard to find these days. Where does joy come from? What is it? Can we make joy happen, or does it just come to us, like grace. If it’s like grace, can we make ourselves more open to receive it? Whatever the answers, they’re worth asking in these joyless of days in which we find ourselves.

In 1996 I began work as the President of Seattle Pacific University. Like any new leader, I set out to learn more what this unique university was all about. I dug into some of the history, trying to locate its DNA. I talked to hundreds of faculty and staff, trustees and students, over coffee and croissants, often in our home that overlooked the campus. Out of all that conversation, and the ensuing reflection, and out of the DNA I brought to the table, we shaped a vision. We called it engaging culture, changing the world.

I have been reading a lot of Celtic poetry lately. Most of this poetry is ancient, coming out of the deep medieval centuries when Christianity was weaving itself into local ways of living. The Celtic people were known as travelers, movers, in seasonal migration, moving on from dangerous geopolitical shifts, simpler moves as well, out from the household with sheep and cattle into now-blooming pastures of the highlands, off perhaps to negotiate with far-flung neighbors. Wonderfully for us, now centuries later, living in a far less sacramental world, the Celts provide a vivid glimpse of how to travel well.