Steve

A Year of Awe: Wonder as the Foundation of Prayer

Steve · September 20, 2026 · Leave a Comment

About a year ago, I read a book called “Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life,” by Dacher Keltner, an expert on human emotion. In the book, Keltner sets out to define what we mean by “awe” and illustrates the experience of awe through dozens of individual stories gathered from around the world.

Shortly after reading the book, I began to wonder: What if I paid a little closer attention every day to what astounds me and fills me with awe and wonder? What if I expanded my time of reflection to look more broadly and consider those eight areas of mystery? What if this was the way I ended each day, with this examen of awe?

A year later, my “year of awe” included some 50,000 words of reflection of my daily encounters with awe, as well as lots of photos of the stuff that caught my eye and heart. It’s not all riveting stuff, as you might imagine. But I learned a few things.

To read my reflection on my “Year of Awe,” click on this link to read it on the Jesuit Media Lab site:

A Year of Awe: Wonder as the Foundation of Prayer

Still the Rocks Cry Out

Steve · June 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment

Today I’m happy to share with you a brand-new song and video from me and my musical colleagues, John Caravelli and Phil Cooper. Inspired by Psalm 98, this song’s a reminder that, even when the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket, God is still at work in the details, recreating the world with each new day. And when we can’t find the words for that…even the rocks cry out and the mountains sing for joy. Enjoy!

Follow the link to my blog to view, if necessary, or click on this link to view on YouTube: https://youtu.be/SXR8w1uYIIk

A New Day’s Song

Words and music by John Caravelli, Phil Cooper and Steve Givens

At the piano there’s no tune to be found
Pick up my guitar and then just put it back down
Times when my hollow voice can’t sing your praise
These are lost and lonely days.
These are lost and lonely days.

But still the rocks cry out.And the mountains sing for joy
The seas resound beneath sacred skies
A new day’s song is on the rise.
A new day’s song is on the rise.

Some days I just sit and ….watch it rain.
Searching for some words and a simple refrain.
Some faint reflection of love in your eyes.
A spark that I might recognize.
A spark that I might recognize.

The world will be saved by this beauty
When God is praised in the shimmering sound
The creator is still creating,
A new day’s song to be found.

For Just One Night – Hope and Peace

Steve · December 18, 2025 · Leave a Comment

The Christmas season is the most wonderful time of the year, right?

For many, it certainly is. It’s a time to rejoice in remembering the Incarnation of the Word of God into the world when Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem. It’s a time of family gatherings, Christmas carols and gift giving. It’s ribbons and bows and snow and chestnuts roasting on an open fire. It’s a happy, merry, joyful, peaceful and hopeful time.

Until it’s not. For many, Christmas can be hard. It’s a time of missing and grieving for the people in our lives who have passed away. We miss them most, it seems, when we gather around the tree or sit in church and they are not there with us.

It’s can also be a time of great financial stress. For “the working poor” (those who are employed but still live at or below the poverty level) it can be a time of still trying to make Christmas special for the children in their lives while they continue to live from paycheck to paycheck. The average American, I just learned on a PBS documentary, spends $1,400 on Christmas gifts. While that may or may not seem like a lot for many of us, for the working poor buying presents is a decision that might involve not paying utility bills, scrimping on food or even not buying needed medicine.

It was especially these people we had in mind when we (me and my musical collaborators John Caravelli and Phil Cooper) sat down to write this year’s Christmas song. It’s called “For Just One Night” and, while it may not be your typical joy-filled Christmas song, we think it’s a message we all need to remember.

Gift-giving is an integral part of the season but not its most essential part, of course. The gift of Christmas is the gift of Christ, and with Christ comes something more — a peace that passes all understanding and just enough hope to get us through the rough patches of our lives. That’s what the parental narrators in this song are praying for. Peace for the world, of course, but also peace in their own little worlds and a sustaining hope that comes from God alone.

Give us hope, see us through
On this holy night, Lord, give us hope.
Peace on Earth, in this place
For just one night, Lord, peace on Earth.

May this Christmas bring you the gifts of Christ: peace and hope.

For Just One Night
Lyrics and music by John Caravelli, Phil Cooper and Steve Givens

I tuck them in, as I make my rounds,
She stretches meals, they wear hand me downs.
It’s Christmas Eve, and my paycheck’s gone,
No gifts this year, we’re barely holding on.

Now it’s just us two, by a tiny tree,
There’s an empty space, where their dreams should be.
Tired of our hopes, no comfort in sight,
Not much to say, another silent night.

Give us hope, see us through
On this holy night, Lord, give us hope.
Peace on Earth, in this place
For just one night, Lord, peace on Earth.

I walk outside, on this winter night,
Just to catch my breath, and try to find
The peace and hope that first appeared
When all was changed, on a midnight clear.

If it’s not too much, too much to ask
For just tonight, hold the cold winds back.
I see the stars and I pray I might
Find you here, on this silent night.

Give us hope, see us through
On this holy night, Lord, give us hope.
Peace on Earth, in this place
For just one night, Lord, peace on Earth.

Let’s Go Around the Table (in Detail)

Steve · November 27, 2025 · Leave a Comment

To prevent any “spoilers,” I’ll just say I was doing an unnamed online word puzzle this morning. I quickly figured out it was asking me for words that you might normally hear while going around the Thanksgiving table and asking everyone to name those things for which they were most grateful. Let’s just say there were no surprises.

[If you haven’t done all your daily online word puzzles yet, you might want to stop reading now and come back later…]

These generic answers were all well and good as far as this annual exercise in gratitude goes, of course. The answers were all important “things” for which to be grateful. But, as I was taught a long time ago by one of my writing teachers, never use the word “thing” when you can be more specific. There’s more power and meaning in the details and in giving the “things” in our lives names.

So, as you go around the table today, I challenge you to outlaw the word “thing” and other generic words like family, life, home, friends, health, work, community, and food. Make them think harder and go deeper. Ask them for the details, for that’s where real meaning is. God, after all, is in the details of our lives. God is the giver of “life,” of course, but also the giver of specific moments, people, places and memories. Maybe ask these questions and require a “why” follow-up:

What was your favorite family moment this year?
When did you feel most alive?
Who are your three best friends right now?
What have you done this year to improve your health?
When did you feel most challenged by work or study?
When did you feel most a part of your community, neighborhood, church or school?
What’s the best meal you had this year? What’s your favorite food?

The stories we tell around the Thanksgiving table matter. They matter for the kids who are creating the memories they will carry forward to their own futures and families. They matter for the old folks who are searching for meaning and joy in their elder years. The things for which we are most grateful (and the details that describe them) speak most clearly of what we treasure.

And remember: “For wherever your treasure is, there will you find your heart.” (Matthew 6:21)

All Signs Point to the House of God

Steve · October 30, 2025 · 2 Comments

We just kept following the signs.

Sue Givens at Monet’s famous lily pond bridge.

One day near the end of September, Sue and I and our good friends, John and Karen, spent the morning walking through Claude Monet’s famous garden in Giverny, a small village in France’s Normandy region where the Epte flows into the Seine and where the impressionist master lived and worked from 1883 until his death in 1926. It’s the one with the water lilies and the green footbridge crossing the small pond, of course. No doubt you’ve seen the pictures.

While there, we followed the signs, first through the tunnel under the road to the water lily pond and then back through the tunnel to the rest of his gardens and home. It was an exquisite, unhurried morning in an unforgettable place. As we made our way back through the village’s main street, the aptly named Rue Claude Monet, we kept seeing flyers advertising “daily piano concerts” in the village church. We decided to follow the signs, which isn’t very hard to do in a town with one main road.

We arrived at the Church of Sainte-Radegonde, where Monet is buried and where the daily classical “improvisational” piano concert was advertised featuring someone named Hughes Reiner. Not knowing what to expect, we ducked into the dimly lit church and waited for our eyes to adjust before finding a seat among a handful of others. It quickly became evident to all of us that we had been dropped into the middle of something very special.

Reiner, it turned out, is a rather famous pianist, composer, opera singer, choirmaster, and conductor who lives locally but who has played all over France and Europe. Without much classical music knowledge, I don’t have many words for what we heard but it was certainly as exceptional as his resume was long. He was truly an extraordinary, intricate (and fast) pianist, and we sat mesmerized by his playing, with not a note of music in front of him.

As we were about to leave, I noticed an ornate, calligraphed sign near one of the side walls of the church. It was, of course, written in French, so I had no idea what it said. John snapped a photo and loaded it into an app that translated it in seconds. He passed me his phone and I read:

You have entered this house.
The house of God.
Whoever you are, He welcomes you.
With your joys, your sorrows.
Your successes, your failures.
Your hopes, your disappointments.
Be welcome.
Generations before you have loved this place,
have contributed to building it, to making it beautiful.
They prayed here.
Respect the peaceful silence.
If you are a believer, pray.
If you seek, reflect.
If you doubt, ask for light.
If you suffer, ask for strength.
If you are joyful, give thanks.
And may you remain here.
Whoever you are, He welcomes you.
Welcome Him. too.

The translation as I repeat it here may not be complete or perfect, but the moment was transcendent, a simple reward for following and reading the signs. It was a reminder that God gives us these signs on a daily basis, wherever we are, if only our eyes are open wide enough to see and read.