James K. A. Smith describes a scene I like from the TV series The West Wing. White House chief of staff Leo McGarry is talking to one of his employees who’s struggling with PTSD. Leo tells him a parable that he thinks will help: This guy’s walking down the street when he falls down a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.

We would rather look away from the suffering at the heart of this day. We would rather look away from anyone in pain. That’s all the more true when it comes to the shame and degradation of the Cross.

The priest at a North Carolina Catholic church, on a Good Friday some years ago, placed an array of Lenten crosses, draped all in black, out in front of his little church.

Not long after, Father Ed received a call from the North Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce: “Look, Reverend,” the representative said, “we've been getting complaints about those crosses. …”

What do we do when we hear reports of a maternity hospital shelled, a boarding school for the visually impaired bombed, a bus shuttling orphaned children from danger blocked, families huddled in subways for weeks, weeping couples separating at the border? What spiritual response makes sense when we see the faces—tear-streaked, defiant, afraid? When our screens and devices deliver constant news of the miseries and horrors of war?

Almighty God, who sees all those who dwell on earth, we pray for the people of Ukraine today. Have mercy on those who now suffer the miseries and terrors of war. Give peace to the anxious, reassurance to the children, healing to the injured, and your comfort to those who mourn. …

Twenty years ago I had the privilege of spending hours and hours in the archives of the collected papers of the late priest and author Henri Nouwen. The book that resulted from my compiling and editing, Turn My Mourning into Dancing, has not only helped unnumbered people, it has gained even more compelling significance during the pandemic.

How to begin a day—knowing its potential uncertainties, and dreaming about the possibilities?

The Book of Common Prayer includes a wonderfully simple entreaty. I’ve been saying it as the day gets going. I’ve read it so often that I can recite it without it in front of me. … I get struck all the time with how full of meaning it seems for this instant’s ambiguities.

Photo by Simon Wilkes on Unsplash

Some time ago I jolted awake at 2 am from a gripping dream.

Years ago, I visited a church member, a surgeon, who’d been hospitalized. He was quite sick.

During our conversation he mentioned his hands. He held them up, hands at that time gnarled from the effects of arthritis, but he remembered how they once had made a difference, helped heal.

Growing up in Southern California, I saw a poster with a line that I’ve never forgotten. It grew out of the late 1960s activism surrounding racial justice. The poster carried a photo of a plaintive-faced African American child, an urban neighborhood his backdrop.

The caption: “God doesn’t make junk.”

That statement, while true, is a bit of an understatement.

A report of a late-night conversation between two British luminaries nudged my spiritual life a stride forward. And deepened my appreciation for belief in God as Trinity.

As the story goes, J. R. R. Tolkien ofThe Lord of the Rings fame had been talking with C. S. Lewis ofThe Chronicles of Narniafame.

Once, leading a retreat for a church group in the rugged terrain of Texas hill country, I taught about listening prayer—the practice of leaving space in our talking with God for guidance or new insight.

And then I gave this assignment: For the next ten or fifteen minutes, I said, go out into the open spaces or trails outside our building, or find a quiet corner here in the retreat center, and pray this simple phrase. …

When my youngest son was two years old, chronic ear infections filled his ears with fluid, dulled his hearing, and slowed his mastery of speech. Micah wanted to talk, but a lack of words constantly frustrated his attempts. This made his part in our family’s nightly bedside prayers a trial.

Promising vaccines--amazingly effective and quickly rolled out—showed up like a long-yearned-for spring. Yet, for all the astonishing good they have done, the deaths headed off, the layer of protection they offer, they haven’t returned life to normal.

Of course prayer makes a difference. Or does it? I ask the question because of something I remember hearing in the church I grew up attending: “Prayer doesn’t change things; it changes us.” Is it true that prayer doesn’t—cannot—change “things”?

I think our world would be better off if we spent less time arguing and more time telling stories.

While it may just be a four-letter word—and a single syllable at that—self carries a lot of freight. Especially when linked with other words: Self-aware, self-worth, selfless. On the negative side we speak of someone as self-centered, self-destructive, selfish.

It’s an odd word, but I instantly understood why someone coined it: Doomscrolling is a new term for our tendency (temptation?) to scroll through bad news on our digital devices, even though that news is disheartening and often depressing.

Most people are intimidated by how complicated the talk of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit seems. But I’m more struck by how the conviction can be a stomach punch to spiritual ease and shallowness.

I’ve come to recognize lately how drawn I am to ideas that soar, to beliefs that somehow make the heart feel larger. I’ve dedicated a fair amount of time lately, after all, to writing about the Trinity, or flights of prayer, or reaching out to an immense God.

For some time I’ve been pondering the Trinity. Nothing like a huge topic! And it’s a belief some find it hard to muster much enthusiasm for. Isn’t the doctrine all about some archaic and esoteric meanderings of idle minds?