Teenagers who do not go to church are adored by God, but they don't get to meet some of the people who love God back.

I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world-present and in awe.

Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.

I was raised with no religious training or influence. Except the influence was to be a moral and ethical person at the secular level. And to be a peace marcher, an activist for civil rights, peace and justice.

No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way.

I didn't write about my mother much in the third year after she died. I was still trying to get my argument straight: When her friends or our relatives wondered why I was still so hard on her, I could really lay out the case for what it had been like to be raised by someone who had loathed herself, her husband, even her own name.

Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts: When people listen to you cry and lament, and look at you with love, it's like they are holding the baby of you.