The most important thing that happens within Christian spirituality is when a person falls in love with Jesus.

It's possible to do both as a writer - to engage and have a family and all that good stuff - and I chose not to for the sake of the career.

Let probability and sample size do the heavy lifting.

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.

The real voice is stiller and smaller and seems to know, without confusion, the difference between right and wrong and the subtle delineation between the beautiful and profane. It's not an agitated voice, but ever patient as though it approves a million false starts. The voice I am talking about is a deep water of calming wisdom.

The thing I loved about her was that I never felt like she was selling anything. She would talk to God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to Him on the phone that day. She was never ashamed which is the thing with some Christians I had encountered.