I was sitting this morning in my prayer chair, that place where I spend so much early-morning time, praying, meditating, reflecting, reading the Psalms each day, studying other parts of Holy Scripture, when I caught a glimpse of my book cases across the room.

I am currently reading David Brooks’ fascinating new book, just out this week, How To Know A Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen. The book is timely, to say the least. With so much hatred floating around, so much judgment that separates us from one another, we need to learn better how to connect meaningfully with each other.

I just finished rereading, for the umpteenth time, the incomparable King Lear, by William Shakespeare, a play first performed in 1606, written by one of the greatest writers in the English language. I returned to this amazing play because someone alerted me there is wise counsel here on how we might grow older gracefully. I know I need help.

In the early days of the twentieth century, after the bloody confusions of WWI, at the beginning and shortly after the atrocities of WWII, W. H. Auden famously proclaimed ours to be “the age of anxiety.” For so many of our writers thereafter, and for many of us as well, Auden puts his finger on the pulse of our age.

We are taught there are various reasons to pray. I remember Tish Harrison Warren putting out a plea for “imprecatory prayer” during the early days of the bloody invasion of Ukraine. As we watched those first pictures of young mothers crouched down in subway corridors holding their babies, we wanted to invoke this ancient prayer: Lord, come now, banish the ruthless and violent in our midst.

Want to change your life? Want to find hope even in the midst of the suffering you are going through, the suffering you also witness daily throughout the world. I have a plan, actually not mine but St. Paul’s. It may sound a little naïve at first, disconnected from real world stuff, but think on this with me for a minute.

I’ve always been puzzled by the extensive use of enemy language in the Psalms. To be sure David knew real enemies. He lived and wrote under the clouds of huge geopolitical threats, so much of it seeking to crush and destroy the ancient kingdom of Judah. He wrote under fear that the homes of his people would be taken and his sacred city of Jerusalem would be reduced to rubble. Plenty to fear, from real enemies on the ground, to be sure.

In my last blog post I shared some pretty intimate details about the struggles Sharon and I are going through right now. I know most people don’t want to hear much about the dark times in other peoples’ lives, but I heard from a number of my readers that I was not totally clear last time about what’s going on for us, especially for my dear wife Sharon.

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,