I mean that there is an element to our grief when a young person dies that is not there in the death of an elder. That’s because, after such a death, we mourn not only for our loved one’s absence but also for the decades to come that we now will not and cannot share.

Part of me – or let me risk being presumptuous here and say: part of us – wants to distance ourselves from faith because so many screwed-up and hateful things have been done in the name of God.

A little while before Christmas, I completed a video game that I started playing in 1985.

Remember: Human beings need to be careful what we worship. Because we will worship something.

A birthday cake can be a sacrament sometimes. So can be a book. So can be a cabin or a bicycle or a painting. So can be tools, with their history written on their bodies in flecks of paint and old sawdust and patterns of wear

At George H.W. Bush’s funeral, President Trump did not join the congregation in saying the Apostles’ Creed. And one person after another responded with tweets accusing him of hypocrisy, of failing as a Christian.