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I love to be busy. I'm envious of people who are able to take their spare time and relax. All I like to do is work. Perhaps it's lingering Calvinist guilt?

Some Christians feel guilty when they are doing something that isn't 'spiritual.' Somehow or another, they feel the need to hurry through the grocery store, dash through the house cleaning, and rush through all the daily aspects of life that seem irrelevant to their faith.

I learned really early on that I had to treat it as if it were a real job. This might be my middle class background - the Irish work ethic, which isn't quite the same as the Protestant work ethic - but still, it's, 'Get a job and show up every day. Be there. And don't complain. Who do you think you are: you're nobody special; go to work.'

When you have a lot of opportunities, which I am blessed to have had in terms of my work, you get into the habit of not paying attention to certain specifics. And as we get busy, anything we do is the same thing.

I love working. I feel guilty about doing nothing; I get bored.

I prefer to be busy all day long, and when you work for someone else, you're not busy enough.

Work is a substitute religious experience for many workaholics.

When you focus on life, on enjoying and connecting with other people, that's when work comes. When you focus on work, you can never work. I'm always going through waves of that.

My religion is my most precious possession. Except for it, I could easily have become excessively occupied with industry. Sharing responsibility for church work has been a vital counterbalance in my life.