But easy's like, who cares? Easy's like, how much is easy going to get you?

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.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

Mine was a patchwork God, sewn together from bits of rag and ribbon, Eastern and Western, pagan and Hebrew, everything but the kitchen sink and Jesus.

And that almost everyone was struggling to wake up, to be loved, and not feel so afraid all the time. That's what the cars, degrees, booze, and drugs were about.

Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.

Sometimes it takes failure to figure out who you aren't.