We were growing up in West Virginia. Everybody was poor there in the southern part of the state. It was like growing up in the Great Depression from the stories I hear people tell. Everybody was poor and so we didn't know that we were any different from anybody else.

While I am the one who made the choice to enter the ministry, there was a choice before that one, the choice God made in calling me to be his in the first place.

My father was a Presbyterian minister, working among the poor in West Virginia. He had taken what amounted to a vow of poverty when he accepted that call and so we never had much money.

There are congressmen in our congregation, judges, federal reserve governors. And there are also people who are homeless and some who are mentally ill. To be able to talk to each of those people is something that I've had to learn how to do over the years.

My life has been forged by middle class values: faith, hard work, deep respect for America and all that she stands for.

There can be no darker or more devastating tragedy than the death of man's faith in himself and in his power to direct his future.

The great thing is that whether we have faith or not, we are by and large very tolerant of people, whatever their particular view.

I personally have always found the Unitarian faith a source of comfort and help in my daily life.