It often takes suffering and lost in order to remind us of how precious life is.

The interactions I have are with people who are very kind and very grateful and they say very overwhelming things to me. Somebody who doesn't like what I do or doesn't understand it, then it wasn't for them.

The Bible itself is a book that constantly must be wrestled with and re-interpreted. ... Bible interpretation is colored by historical context, the reader's bias and current realities. The more you study the Bible, the more questions it raises. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says.

When Isaiah predicted that spears would become pruning hooks, that's a reference to cultivating. Pruning and trimming and growing and paying close attention to the plants and whether they're getting enough water and if their roots are deep enough. Soil under the fingernails, grapes being trampled under bare feet, fingers sticky from handling fresh fruit. It's that green stripe you get around the sole of your shoes when you mow the lawn. Life in the age to come. Earthy.

I believe our world desperately needs Good News.

I embrace the term 'evangelical,' if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness, a hopeful outlook. That's a beautiful sort of thing.

I think what's happened in the modern world, there's a lot of people that sound very smart and it's very compelling and alluring, but it leaves you empty.