This is why I like this book... :)

From Lauren Winner's "Girl Meets God":

On learning about Lent:

• "His Ash Wednesday homily, just the night before, had dwelt for a few minutes on fasting. He had spoken of the need to give up something that was truly important to you. To give something that was really truly yourself. He had encouraged us to remember what it was like to receive gifts from friends. So much of what made the gift meaningful, said Milind, was not the gift itself, but the spirit in which it was given. Say your friend has a beautiful green sundress. You have liked and admired that sundress for months. She gives it to you. If it's just a castoff - she has eighteen others just like it, so giving it to you is no real sacrifice - the whole exchange feels a little anticlimatic. But if your friend loves that dress too, loves it dearly but wants you to have it because she knows it will make you happy, then you are thrilled. The dress takes on a whole new meaning. 'That is how it is with the gifts we give to God,' Milind said in his sermon. 'I want to encourage you to give something to God that really matters. Something you really love. Something that is hard to do without.'

On baptism:

• "Jo got up and went to the bookshelf. She found an American Book of Common Prayer, which is slightly different from the Church of England's prayer book. 'Here, maybe this will make you feel better,' she said, flipping to the baptismal service. 'In the American prayer book, you don't just answer all these questions in the affirmative. You say, 'I will, with God's help.' I usually think the Church of England is much more together, insightful, and generally sane than the Protestant Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. But in this case, I think we Americans got it right. I will, with God's help."

On children:

• "A family of four, passing through New York en route to Niagara Falls, visits All Angels' for Sunday worship, and at the coffee hour I chat with the blonde and smiling mother, Violet. As she is telling me about the family's farm in Georgia, her small daughter, who looks about three, sidles up offering cookies. I coo. 'You have quite a handful of cookies,' I say, as my uterus skips a beat."

Did she just say that??