Everybody's entitled to think whatever they want and to express that, but my personal day-to-day experience does not come into contact with any of those people.

I've found that music allows years to fold like an accordion over each other, so I guess you don't feel the passage of time as much.

But my experience is that people who have been through painful, difficult times are filled with compassion.

Rich Mullins was the uneasy conscience of Christian music. He didn't live like a star. He'd taken a vow of poverty so that what he earned could be used to help others.

The world my children are growing up in is so much more sophisticated and exposed - emotionally, intellectually, sexually.

I had the great advantage of a mother who used to tell me the most beautiful years of a woman's life are ages 35 to 45.

I don't write songs that don't affect me on some level, because I figure if I am not moved by it, if its not something that I have a longing to celebrate or to be reminded of, if it doesn't affect me, then how can I possibly think it is going to affect somebody else. My touchstone is write something that matters.