A sense of wonder: the world's best writers on the sacred, the profane, and the ordinary

Introduction: bruised with joy / Brian Doyle An elevator in Utah : on how children make despair look stupid / David James Duncan On laughing: notes on the funnest sound there is / Patrick Madden Do you think there is anything not attached by its unbreakable cord to everything else? / Mary Oliver Buring Mrs. Hamilton: a sacrament in the snow / Father Leroy Clementich, C.S.C. Every war has two losers: Oregon's late poet laureate on the madness of violence / William Stafford

On not being good at reading the Bible / Helen Garner Learning to love: notes on praying a river / John Daniel I hold his hand / Steve Duin This soul has six wings : notes on ash and mystics and love and fire and taking it seriously / Jessie Van Eerden Hep! Hep! Hep! / Cynthia Ozick One of a kind and all the same: notes on hate and love and possibility / Thomas Lynch The closest to love we ever get: maybe the noisy song we all make together is the most powerful prayer of all / Heather King We have always been here: an Umatilla woman ponders the Corps of Discovery / Roberta Conner

Who am I? Notes on ecstatic moments / John Coats When I knew: godlessness and God on September 11 / Patrick Giles The late mister Bin Laden: a note / Brian Doyle Bald places: notes on nursing as witness / Hob Osterlund God owns a convenience store in British Columbia: who knew? / Gae Rusk The reality of torture / Martin Flanagan A burning soul / Mary Gordon I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least / Pattiann Rogers The river / Paul Myers

Native: notes on Americanness / Ian Frazier Across the void: a note on crazy and crucial hope / Robin Cody Madre de Dios: on the unimaginable ocean of her love / Barry Lopez Who am I, Lord, that you should know my name? A note on believing, against all sense and reason / Bruce Lawrie Words are not enough / Alice Lok Cahana Her: on a dream coming beautifully true / Bill McNamara A war story: in the middle of Iraq in the middle of a war, there was a moment ... / Pete Rooks The call to forgiveness at the end of the day / Kathleen Dean Moore A chapel is where you can hear something beating below your heart: I came to the chapel at the university as the light was falling ... / Pico Iyer

The hope of a trail: "For all I know I am approaching the holiest of places in the world. Who can say? Who knows? We know nothing ... / Rick Bass

When I was blind: "Blindness was full of second sight ..." / Edward Hoagland

Why I am a priest / Father Charles Gordon, C.S.C.

Perfect time: a note on the music of being a dad / Connor Doe

Healing or stealing? The best commencement address ever / Paul Hawken.