I live by the simplest, perhaps facile command that Jesus ever gave, which is to love God with the whole self and the neighbor as the self, and I find that's entirely consuming. To do those two things leaves me very little time to do much else.

I know that the Bible is a special kind of book, but I find it as seductive as any other. If I am not careful, I can begin to mistake the words on the page for the realities they describe. I can begin to love the dried ink marks on the page more than I love the encounters that gave rise to them.

To be fully human is perhaps why I'm Christian, because I see in the life of Jesus a way of being fully human.

As a general rule, I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.

I wanted to be as close as I could to the Really Real, and I'll capitalize both of those R's, because God is a word that means different things to different people, but we might all agree it's what is most real.

I don't miss the ministry, because I'm completely engaged in it. In terms of parish ministry, I miss the intimacy with a group of people.

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