It is when people do not allow God to show up through them ... that the world collapses in on itself.

I need for there to be something bigger than me. I need someone to put awe inside me; I need to come second to someone who has everything figured out.

When one of my friends becomes a Christian, which happens about every 10 years because I am a sheep about sharing my faith, the experience is euphoric. I see in their eyes the trueness of the story.

There's no authoritarian structure at Reed College, but the education is conservative. So what you have is a lot of students who are very authentically looking for truth.

It is when people do not allow God to show up through them ... that the world collapses in on itself.

The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something. And there is something inside me, some selfish beast of a subtle thing that doesn't like the truth at all because it carries responsibility, and if I actually believe these things I have to do something about them. It is so, so cumbersome to believe anything. And it isn't cool.

Sometimes the story we're telling the world isn't half as endearing as the one that lives inside us.