The beauty in the losing is a loss finally of self-consciousness. There's a gorgeous moment that can happen in all kinds of places. It can happen with people, it can happen with nature, and it can happen with my eyes shut anywhere I am.

When I say I trust Jesus, that is what I mean: I trust that the way of life leads through perishability, not around it.

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.

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.

Science is not metaphorical. Science is scientific.

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

I began to get notes from people saying they were sorry to hear I'd left ministry. And for a while, I halfway believed they were right, that I'd left.