There’s an old 16th-century prayer that ran through my head on Saturday as I was headed up to Connecticut to see the father of a dear friend who is in hospice care:

God be in my head, and in my understanding. God be in mine eyes, and in my looking. God be in my mouth, and in my speaking. God be in my heart, and in my thinking. God be at mine end, and at my departing.

OK, I didn’t know Ascension was today either. It’s not marked down on my calendar; I didn’t get a text reminding me of the holiday. None of the prayer sites I subscribe to alerted me (maybe I need to add to my list of prayer sites).

It is no secret that I use my morning ride on the subway as a time of prayer, closing my eyes, feeling the rumble of the train, focusing on a verse or two of a psalm and then checking in with God.

But I wouldn’t say that I’m entirely alone. I see others around me, reading a page of Scripture or studying devotionals on their cell phones. Sometimes their prayers are said out loud.

Thirty years ago today, the 30th of April, Carol and I got married in the little chapel of our church, prayed for by a congregation of friends and family, convening from California to Connecticut.

The church was bit a rundown back then, the stained-glass windows covered with grime, and the neighborhood was pretty dicey, but it was our home church, the place where we sang in the choir, prayed with our good friends and heard sermons that helped us figure out what we wanted to do with our lives.

The question inevitably comes up during any probing discussion of prayer: What happens to prayers that go unanswered? What if the answer is No? What if you’ve prayed and prayed about something, storming the heavens, and things don’t turn out the way you believed in the depths of your heart they should?

My heart went out immediately to the victims the dreadful bombing at the end of the Boston Marathon.

I’m a runner, a long-distance runner, and indeed have a very good friend and neighbor who was up there in Boston, running the marathon. I confess that when I got the news I quickly calculated what his marathon time usually is. Would he have been there? Through Facebook his wife let us know he was all right.

Staying connected on the road is a challenge. Staying connected to God, staying connected to your family, staying connected to your prayer practice while you’re dashing to planes, rental cars, hotels, TV studios, conference rooms. Even staying connected to your pets back home.

I’ve been on the road a lot lately, promoting my book 10 Prayers You Can’t Live Without. I was heading to the airport for another flight when I got a text from my wife: “Fred misses you.”

Every once in a while a new book comes along that reaffirms and helps me in my prayer life. I was particularly moved by Richard Lischer’s book Stations of the Heart: Parting With a Son.

Mountains figure prominently in the Bible. Mount Sinai, where Moses received the ten commandments; Mount Ararat, where Noah landed safely after the flood; the temple mount in Jerusalem; the sermon on the Mount, where Jesus preached; and of course Calvary, where Jesus died.

I can remember asking my mom as a kid, "Why is it called Good Friday?"

It completely baffled me. I'd gone to Sunday school long enough to know that Jesus died on the cross on Good Friday. He was arrested, put through a trial, denied by his own, whipped, paraded through Jerusalem and crucified, dying after six hours of agony.