Most of us have been there—that zombie state from working too many hours for too many days in a row. You say to yourself, “Just one more week, as soon as I finish this one project.” But then that next week comes and you’re not quite finished, and suddenly more days are swallowed up in the frenzy of industry.

Grandma was in her glory because her grandchildren were circled all around her. She gloried in their presence, looking at each fresh-scrubbed face, peering, it seemed, deep down into each of their souls. And she liked what she saw.

Many survivors of the Holocaust recount how they were brutally taken from their homes to the horrific concentration camps where so many died. For some the journey to the camp was itself a living hell.

A city boy in the suburbs with his family visiting relatives he never met—it was a recipe for disaster.

If they had to sit through one more employee meeting with the accounting supervisor insisting that what the company needed was a little more love, they were going to jump out of their skins.

One day I was walking in downtown Chicago, passing sights so familiar to me that they hardly registered. My progress was interrupted by a group of tourists from a foreign country who had stopped in their tracks and stood pointing and staring at the front of a building across the street from us.

Last summer, I flew to Minneapolis and rented a car to drive to the northernmost corner of Minnesota. From there, I took a boat out to an island in the boundary waters, crossing into Canada on the way. As I stepped off the boat, I was reunited with five friends from long ago, women with whom I have shared the routine struggles and joys of daily life, the ups and downs of parenting, a concern and sense of responsibility for the world around us, and with whom I can share the inner secrets of my heart.

Those of us who live at sea level often have trouble breathing when we are up in the thinner mountain air. Many people have trouble sleeping. Others notice that their appetites are affected.

Every few years, yet another corporate scandal spurs a new round of calls for tough legislation against corporate greed and promises from CEOs to clean up their acts and police themselves.

Have you seen the T-shirt that says, “God’s not finished with me yet?” Maybe that’s the souvenir Jesus should have bought the disciples after they went up the mountain with him and saw him revealed in all his glory.