Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.

The first holy truth in God 101 is that men and women of true faith have always had to accept the mystery of God's identity and love and ways. I hate that, but it's the truth.

Sometimes I think that Jesus watches my neurotic struggles, and shakes his head and grips his forehead and starts tossing back mojitos.

I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.

To be a good writer, you not only have to write a great deal but you have to care. You do not have to have a complicated moral philosophy. But a writer always tries, I think, to be a part of a solution, to understand a little about life and to pass this on.

Anything you say from your heart to God is a prayer. But "why" is rarely a useful question. When Job keeps asking God why he has had such loss and suffering, God says, "You wouldn't understand." I always want to know why, and I almost never have a good answer.

Having a child as a single mother was a crucible - maybe this is true for all parents. I got rid of so much stuff that didn't really matter in the scheme of things-like throwing stuff out of an airplane that kept me flying too low. What was left was essential, i.e. not a lot of extraneous stuff that had kept me busy and people-pleasing. I just didn't have the luxury of wasting my life force on so much stupidity and distraction. That made me strong.