You describe the good anywhere you find it and you don't lose your sense of humor

Man through mythology created God in his image. The deity that resulted is every bit as imperfect as man, as imperfect as the church you encountered in your book. At times wonderfully human and loving, at others as political and mean-spirited as any other human organization.

Your wonderfully detailed writing reveals that you held onto the key part of your humility, being grounded, as you did your best to love God. You describe speaking up when it was painful and inconvenient. Putting others first as you were directed, losing yourself in the process. You encouraged others while you tried to whip yourself into shape, a counterintuitive process on any road to a full and happy life.

Throughout your tale, you describe the good anywhere you find it and you don't lose your sense of humor. You speak honestly about your own imperfections and do not pursue a vengeance. You simply tell a story that needs telling. Your nuanced writing brings alive your journey: the locales pop off the page with all their grit and hard work and smells and bells, and the rubbing together of people provides you an endless list of story lines.

You describe what many of us have encountered less dramatically outside a convent. Cradle Catholics were told that by following the rules a full spiritual life would follow. God's love was just around the corner if we were obedient enough, rigid enough. We were to pursue perfection, a false god for sure. In other words, the rules were life and death. Every minute of every day. Like you I eventually felt a force of love more powerful: caring for others and believing a person is more important than a rule book. There is no plan B for committed Catholics. It's a forced march with the only rest provided by individuals straying from doctrine, or by liberal clergy who bring some sunlight to what can be a suffocating experience.

You and another lapsed Catholic non-theist, Julia Sweeney (Letting Go of God), tell your tales without hard edges. You reveal a commonality of goodness open to all. We, ourselves, create an authentic spirituality by being kind to others, reaching out to the less fortunate, opening doors of possibility, thinking freely, joining hands to promote policies that advance our communities. By loving one another.

Thank you for the courage to write honestly and openly. People do not like prophets of change who deny religion's fringe benefits like being in the country club of heaven while heathens next door are on the road to hell.

May you have the peace you pursued so ardently for two decades in your present life. And find community with fellow explorers as you work to bring an alternative humanistic approach to lives.

Herb Hartnett spent 42 years on campus, first at the University of Pennsylvania and then at the University of Maryland, College Park as a media relations director in college athletics. Calling himself an "untalented hanger-on to the athletically talented," he was part of the Olympics as a U.S. team member, up close at countless NCAA basketball games (men and women), and lovingly, the largest track and field meet in the world, the Penn Relays.