Here are the two best prayers I know: 'Help me, help me, help me' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Help" is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray--with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, "Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom.

We religious types, even those who detest organized religion, pray for deeper faith and a greater sense of oneness with God.

A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: I'm not going to take anything away from you, you have to give it to Me.

If we stay where we are, where we're stuck, where we're comfortable and safe, we die there... When nothing new can get in, that's death.

Help, Thanks, Wow

Prayer usually means praise, or surrender, acknowledging that you have run out of bullets.

...the three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.

Human lives are hard, even those of health and privilege, and don't make much sense. This is the message of the Book of Job: Any snappy explanation of suffering you come up with will be horseshit.