The turmoil of uncertainty and regret that we human people so often feel within ourselves is intensified by the violent conflict we witness raging throughout the world. Who could not feel shaky when so many governments are disintegrating and so many institutions are crumbling and the earth itself is threatening catastrophe?

Does our inner turbulence, conversely, contribute to the instability of the world around us? Surely it does. Whether borne in silence or released in violent outbursts, what goes on inside us affects those around us, including those we encounter only briefly as well as those with whom we share the days of our lives.

Our injured pride, our well-nursed grudges, our arrogant dismissal of those we consider less important than ourselves, our idolatry of power, and a thousand other factors unsettle our souls, deny us the integrity that would make us whole, and extend our inner storm far beyond our immediate contacts. Ripple effects from the turmoil within one personality have been known to destabilize nations.

Notwithstanding the futility we feel at all this, we hope for a better world, and we pray to be better people. In much the same way that Robert Frost's poem, "Tree at My Window" suggests the tapping of branches on his windowpane, whether gentle or violent, may either awaken or reassure, so each of these brief essays is a tap on the shoulder to prompt, however obliquely, the deep human prayer for a truly integrated soul and community.