The story of these psalm verses begins in 1976. One night while on retreat near Gloucester, the author witnessed the appearance of millions of lights in and over the ocean as far as he could see. That phenomenon linked itself to Psalm Twenty-Seven and was followed by other unusual experiences described in the Introduction. Never having written a poem in his life, he found himself trying to put the words of Psalm Twenty-Seven into metered, rhyming verses. Since then an almost irrestistible attraction to the psalms has inspired him to work them into this form for his own enjoyment. When he ventured to pray and proclaim them out loud with other people, their impact on individuals and groups gradually convinced him that they were meant to be shared with others.
In retrospect he sees this gift of the psalms as intimately connected with retreats he gave later. Seeking to deepen the "We and God" experiences of Marriage Encounter spirituality, he began in 1977 some year-long small-group sharing retreats for couples, following the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. In 1979 the We and God Spirituality Center was established to support these retreats, to train leaders in relationship spirituality, to study the psychological aspects of spiritual growth, and to publish research studies in these areas.