The kingdom of God is a glorious and gigantic party!

President Bush once said that marriage is a sacred institution and should be reserved for the union of one man and one woman. If this is the case - and most Americans would agree with him on this - then I have to ask: Why is the government at all involved in marrying people?

I’ve got to push everything out of mind save the name of Jesus. I say His name over and over again, for as long as fifteen minutes, until I find my soul suspended in what the ancient Celtic Christians called a “thin place”–a state where the boundary between heaven and earth, divine and human, dissolves. You could say that I use the name of Jesus as my koan.

Your past is important but it is not nearly as important to your present as the way you see your future.

Because of the increase in life longevity, America can now assume that at any given time three, and perhaps four, former presidents will still be alive, even when the current president is occupying the White House.

Beyond these models of reconciliation, a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam. Both religions have within their histories examples of ecstatic union with God, which seem at odds with their own spiritual traditions but have much in common with each other.

Getting the government to put money into social programs run by religious institutions is a practice that started during the Clinton years, when Bill Clinton advocated the AmeriCorps program.