Dan Fante and Forrest Church

These two were the subjects of interviews by Terry Gross on Fresh Air on Tuesday, September 29th. Forrest Church died on September 24, 2009, at the age of 61. He was a famous Unitarian Universalist minister, presiding at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in New York City for about 30 years. Terry Gross had interviewed him last year about his cancer which, at that time seemed to be in remission, but came back this year. A transcript of the interview is here.

She also interviewed Dan Fante, the writer. I don't know much about Mr. Fante, had never encountered his writing before, but she had him read a short piece he had written called "Asking." He read:

For years, I thought that talking to the gods was an exercise done privately, under unforgiving, distant stars, ridiculous unrequited prayer evoked by staring at old, cold books with mean, small print. Then I discovered that just ain't it at all. God can be found in the thank-you voice of a guy at the counter in the supermarket or the quietness of a stranger's parking-lot smile or the rattle of weeds across a dry, summer Mohave or watching my unfettered fingers jump, jump, jumping across the computer keys, deep in the middle of typing three hours' worth of unscrubbed truth. God for me turned out to be a conscious choice, a self-evoked experience, just like love.

The part about God turning out to be a "conscious choice, a self-evoked experience, just like love" really struck me and reminded me of Gordon Kaufman's similar idea. A transcript of the whole interview is here.