To be an American is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.

The Christian religion asks us to put our trust not in ideas, and certainly not in ideologies, but in a God Who was vulnerable enough to become human and die, and Who desires to be present to us in our ordinary circumstances.

Poets are immersed in process, and I mean process not as an amorphous blur but as a discipline. The hard work of writing has taught me that in matters of the heart, such as writing, or faith, there is no right or wrong way to do it, but only the way of your life. Just paying attention will teach you what bears fruit and what doesn't. But it will be necessary to revise--to doodle, scratch out, erase, even make a mess of things--in order to make it come out right.

This is a God who is not identified with the help of a dictionary but through a relationship.

You can only see one thing clearly, and that is your goal. Form a mental vision of that, and cling to it through thick and thin.

If we are lucky, we can give in and rest without feeling guilty. We can stop doing and concentrate on being.

Laundry, liturgy and women's work all serve to ground us in the world, and they need not grind us down. Our daily tasks, whether we perceive them as drudgery or essential, life-supporting work, do not define who we are as women or as human beings.