The line between sacred and secular is man-made.

The library remains a sacred place for secular folk ["What Libraries Can (Still) Do," The New York Review Daily, October 26, 2015].

I don't believe for a minute that the proof of God's existence is achieved. My faith prohibits me from believing that the proof of God's existence can ever be adduced. My God is not an object for verification, He is a subject for love. My faith is not knowledge, it is acceptance. It is a matter not of calculation but of trust.

Sometimes, by celebrating the evangelical heroes of the faith, we have inadvertently communicated something false: if it's not big and audacious and officially sanctioned, it's not good enough for God.

When our hearts, minds, and souls are deep within the reality of living loved, we discover that most of those "rules" from Sunday school are simply our new characteristics and our family traits. They are the fruit born of a meaningful, life-changing relationship—they are the flowers of life in the Vine.

Living loved, we relax our expectations, our efforts, our strivings, our rules, our spine, our breath, our plans, our job descriptions and checklists; we step off the treadmill of the world and the treadmill of religious performance. We are not the authors of our redemption.