A beach is not only a sweep of sand, but shells of sea creatures, the sea glass, the seaweed, the incongruous objects washed up by the ocean.

Rationally, I was convinced that the universe without God made no sense, but that simply was not the same as believing. But I also knew that I could not argue myself, or be argued, into faith.

My years with failing vision have prompted me to learn about the nature of the eye and the incredible gift of sight, which I had always taken for granted until it began to slip away.

It is part of the fundamental impulse in all living things to reach for light, part of the indomitable will to see.

Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph and the signs of horror are still in the air.