The only way through is down

What I found was that it was the prayers and practices of the church that allowed me to hold to—or rather to be held by—God when little else seemed sturdy, to hold to the Christian story even when I found no satisfying answers.

We are tempted by nearly every current of culture to form our lives so that there is no time for grief, but only the dim hum of consumption, dulling our agony—but, with it, our joy, wonder, and longing. The Psalms call us back into the dramatic depths of reality.

So many of the wise teachers among us apprehend truths of life from an edge of illness or crisis, where the view is suddenly so stark and so clear. They come back wounded and more whole than before, all at the same time—not cured, but healing, and embodying mystical ideas that seemed strange as abstractions and turn out to be common sense. The core