Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.

I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.

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

Contrary to popular opinion, Christians are not nice polite people who never get angry with one another. Those are not the virtues of God's people. Our virtues are truth-telling, kindness, forgiveness and yes, even anger-as long as it is the anger that is part of true love-through which we move closer to one another and to the God who has shown us how it is done.

I thought being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was...it wasn't until I failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness.

I have learned to prize holy ignorance more highly than religious certainty and to seek companions who have arrived at the same place. We are a motley crew, distinguished not only by our inability to explain ourselves to those who are more certain of their beliefs than we are but in many cases by our distance from the centers of our faith communities as well.

Having been brought up with a definition of faith as adherence to a set of beliefs, I have more and more begun to turn instead toward a definition of faith as openness to truth, whatever truth may turn out to be.