A sense of wonder : the world's best writers on the sacred, the profane, and the ordinary / edited by Brian Doyle.

Includes bibliographical references.

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 -- Burying 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 a 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 place 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.