When you go on pilgrimage, you can count on seeing something you didn’t expect. So said my rector, Josh Condon, when I told him about our summer travel plans. He was right. Earlier this month, as Jill and I walked the footpaths of ancient Celtic saints in Scotland and England, more than one surprise awaited us.

One of the “high crosses” we encountered on Iona, an isle off the Scottish coast, became one such instance—a lesson that held something hidden at first, and then in an instant something momentous, moving. One of many insights on the trip.

Picking up a few things at my local Walmart, I noticed three T-shirt slogans in the span of five or ten minutes, each a variation on a theme.

One, worn by a young woman pushing a cart with a baby, read “This mama needs a nap.” Another, on an older man shopping with his wife and (I assume) grandchildren, proclaimed something like “Retired … But still tired.”

I can’t recall the third T-shirt, but it broadcast a similar sentiment: I’m worn out. Those few minutes made me realize just how much weariness has become a shared experience in our culture.

Some days we don’t feel fully alive so much as simply tired. Our exhaustion may be physical, but often it has emotional and spiritual roots as well.

Don’t a lot of us wish for more stamina, for alertness that doesn’t come merely from caffeine or a so-called energy drink?