All parents are an embarrassment to their kids. Often grandparents are the relief. Kids don't have to resist you.

I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.

Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud and rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day numbness, silence.

My theology is based on what I tell my Sunday-school kids - that they are loved and chosen, AS IS, now, today. That the moment is holy, sacred, and all there is - and that we are only as sick as our secrets. So TELL IT.

There is ecstasy in paying attention.

At our most primitive we are storytellers and dancers.

I did not raise my son, Sam, to celebrate Mother's Day. I didn't want him to feel some obligation to buy me pricey lunches or flowers, some annual display of gratitude that you have to grit your teeth and endure.