What intrigues us the most is that mysterious boundary where the human and the divine intersect. This was the place I said I wanted to plant my life and to do my central work. This was, in fact, living out the charge that was given to me the night I was ordained to the Christian ministry. I still remember the way an old pastor stated it. He said, "Tom, I admonish you to stay close to God, stay close to humankind, and to make it the goal of your ministry to bring God and humankind closer together." This really has been my "bot-tom-line objective" in all I have tried to do.

More than anything else, I have wanted to heighten awareness of the God-reality and facilitate a relation of trust and interaction between the two that takes the aloneness out of human existence. It is my theological ass…