My mother was a not-too-devoted atheist. She went to Episcopal church on Christmas Eve every year, and that was mostly it.

For me, Jesus is my cleft in the rock. He is my safest friend, my safe totally loving accepting big brother.

Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.

In fact, not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.

These are pictures of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition.

Bananas are great, as I believe them to be the only known cure for existential dread. Also, Mother Teresa said that in India, a woman dying in the street will share her banana with anyone who needs it, whereas in America, people amass and hoard as many bananas as they can to sell for an exorbitant profit. So half of them go bad, anyway.

Sometimes grace is a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks.