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.

How do I let go of Maplewood? It's like Shangri-la. It's so culturally diverse, and all my children are adopted - a transracial family. And we're not the freaks. Everybody flies their freak flag high in Maplewood!

I was actually very fortunate. I think I was actually the only kid in my class at one stage that actually had a father in the home.

How do I make the son, daughter, wife of Paterno interesting? Then you just have to start seeing people.

The first responsibility of the Muslim is as teacher. That is his job, to teach. His first school, his first classroom is within the household. His first student is himself. He masters himself and then he begins to convey the knowledge that he has acquired to the family. The people who are closest to him.