I’m a spiritual person who lacks a vocabulary for it.

Lance Armstrong – Every Second Counts (p. 96)

Brilliant! I’ve always looked for the right words to express my beliefs and now I have them.

Any account of my life begs for larger explanation: why did I live? I refuse the pat answer. God didn’t do it. I don’t mean to offend anyone, and I realize it upends the traditional expectation for me to say this, but I don’t believe in a neat religious reckoning. I’m not much for prayer, don’t belong to any religion that involves buildings, and I’m leery of proselytizing. Yet I wear a crucifix. How do I explain that to a stranger in an airport between flights?

What do I believe? I believe in mystery. I believe faith keeps a lot of the world straight. I believe if you squint hard and try to see the pattern of things, you can put them in their proper place: taxes, scandal, gossip, headache, traffic jams. I believe in restraint on the subject of religion, and I believe that the responsible person seriously questions it, because it’s only right to question the administration of a church that shields child molesters, or the legitimacy of a faith that encourages repression and terror. Anything else is deficient use of your mind and morals.

I think too many people look to religion as an excuse, or a crutch, or a bailout. I think that what you’ve got is what you’ve got, here and now.

Lance Armstrong – Every Second Counts (p. 96-97)

I can agree with pretty much everything Lance says there. I like this guy more and more all the time.