My husband is my most ruthless critic... sometimes he will say, 'It's been said better before.' Of course it has. It's all been said better before. If I thought I had to say it better than anybody else, I'd never start. Better or worse is immaterial. The thing is that it has to be said; by me; ontologically. We each have to say it, to say it our own way. Not of our own will, but as it comes out through us. Good or bad, great or little: that isn't what human creation is about. It is that we have to try; to put it down in pigment, or words, or musical notations, or we die.

One cannot be humble and aware of oneself at the same time.

There is no way that you can read the entire Bible seriously and take every word literally. Contradictions start in the first chapter of Genesis. There are two Creation stories, two stories of the making of Adam and Eve. And that is all right. The Bible is still true.

Remember the root word of humble and human is the same: humus: earth. We are dust. We are created; it is God who made us and not we ourselves. But we were made to be co-creators with our maker.

I saw Eternity the other night, Like a great ring of pure and endless light, All calm, as it was bright, And round beneath it, Time, in hours, days, years, Driven by the spheres, Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world And all her train were hurled.

Following Christ has nothing to do with success as the world sees success. It has to do with love.

I used to feel guilty about spending morning hours working on a book; about fleeing to the brook in the afternoon. It took several summers of being totally frazzled by September to make me realize that this was a false guilt. I'm much more use to family and friends when I'm not physically and spiritually depleted than when I spend my energies as though they were unlimited. They are not. The time at the typewriter and the time at the brook refresh me and put me into a more workable perspective.