Every human interaction offers you the chance to make things better or to make things worse.

The poets began drifting away from churches as the jurists grew louder and more insistent.

There was no time anymore to be quiet or still or pray. So, in many ways, that's what led to my downward spin.

Jesus was not killed by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix. Beware those who claim to know the mind of God and who are prepared to use force, if necessary, to make others conform. Beware those who cannot tell God's will from their own. Temple police are always a bad sign. When chaplains start wearing guns and hanging out at the sheriff's office, watch out. Someone is about to have no king but Caesar

I found myself in a maze where I'd taken the wrong turn. In my wish to do well for that congregation I wasn't doing particularly well for myself or my friends or my family, and I even found that the work for God was taking me away from God.

For a long time I listened to other people to decide whether I was still Christian or not, and I would sort of vet myself by the traditional formulae.

I didn't want to be a priest. I wanted to do the work that priests do, and that required becoming a priest.