To be in the mainline is to have a history and not simply to be an amalgam, a community church of who knows what that came from who knows where.

I think we d like life to be like a train..but it turns out to be a sailboat.

The value for me being in a mainline tradition is history and memory, which is not just Christian tradition but denominational tradition, and characters, you know, with real distinct flavors of ways to be Christian.

I love being alone. I learned that from my father, I think, who loved his own company.

I'll do my best to always put God and neighbor ahead of ego, but I want to find myself, and if finding myself means losing my ego self, I'll go there.

Most of us will have more than one job in our working lives, which means we will have more than one opportunity to seek meaningful work at different stages of our own deepening humanity.

I can't help but note that God is being useful to a lot of people trying to do harm to one another.