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It turns out that the center of the Milky Way may smell like rum and taste a bit like raspberries. Ethyl formate, one of the molecules that gives raspberries their flavor and rum its smell, has been found in space. In a way this is hardly remarkable. After all, it’s no surprise that we are made of the same stuff as the stars. And yet there’s poignancy to this new piece of knowledge, poignancy in knowing that the beauty of the galaxies is as intimate, near and sublime as eating raspberries on a clear summer night.

Repent or perish. I’ve worked my entire career to avoid using this phrase from Luke 13:5. I’ve been afraid that if the Christian message is reduced to these three words, people will hear in them only an angry God, a God who uses any excuse to punish us. But sometimes, I admit, I’m just trying to soften “repent or perish” so I can present a God with whom everyone is comfortable—a God who has better manners, a God I’m not embarrassed to take out into public.

“Tell me a story.” No bedtime liturgy would be complete without these four magical, sacred words, or the four magical words that follow: “Once upon a time. . . .” Story shapes us. Fantastical bedtime stories fill us with fervent hopes for lives full of high adventure and romance, through which we learn chivalry, fidelity and courage. Stories we tell about our families and ourselves recall and rehearse the triumphs, failures and oddities of life.