Of all the exotic aromas and experiences from my sojourn in Ethiopia, it’s the frankincense I miss most.

While it's true that you may lose your religion during the course of a lifetime, you never lose your salvation. Once you let Jesus in your kitchen, he just keeps on making peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and he never leaves.

Laughter is grace in its gaseous form.

I've heard it said that grace is God reaching God's hands into the world. And the Bible tells us that we are part of the body of Christ, that if we let the Spirit move through us, we can become the hands of Christ on earth. Hands that heal, bless, unite, and love. I'd like to think God's hands are a bit like Grace's man hands—gentle but big, busy, and tough. God's hands are those of a creator—an artist who molded and shaped the universe out of a void, who hewed matter from nothingness.

Trying to explain or define grace is like catching the wind in a cardboard box or describing the color green.

Music is a vehicle that propels me and so many other people toward a place we might call grace.

Grace has a way of sneaking up on you like that. When you least deserve it.