I think my writing is part of my ministry.

Is it always to be a winners-losers world, or can we keep everyone in the game? Do we still have what it takes to find a better way?

If we could just figure out how to have more fun at it, maybe more of us would join the ranks of those who seek after justice and mercy.

Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there at the sandpile at Sunday School.

Living things have been doing just that for a long, long time. Through every kind of disaster and setback and catastrophe. We are survivors.

I know what I really want for Christmas. I want my childhood back. Nobody is going to give me that. I might give at least the memory of it to myself if I try. I know it doesn't make sense, but since when is Christmas about sense, anyway? It is about a child, of long ago and far away, and it is about the child of now. In you and me. Waiting behind the door of or hearts for something wonderful to happen. A child who is impractical, unrealistic, simpleminded and terribly vulnerable to joy.

You feel like an ant contemplating Chicago.