Please tell us a little about yourself and your work.    

I’m a Harvard-trained ethicist and New York minister. I was appointed as a research fellow at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and was part of Harvard Catalyst [a center for science and training], where I explored the inequities surrounding health, immigration, and social policies. I wrote A Holy Haunting aiming to close the evergrowing gap between faith and science.

How did you develop your subject?

When I saw a book that put forth the notion that God is a delusion. In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins mocks prayer, equating it with a “sky fairy.” For many in the broader culture today, this polemical assertion simply rings true. Many believe faith is a leap into the dark armed with nothing but a whim. At best, faith is a placebo; at worst, it is a delusion. 

Clearly, faith is deeply misunderstood. What if the real problem is that we’ve been looking at faith the wrong way? What if faith is not essentially a set of beliefs but is instead who we are in the deepest ontological sense? What if we are beings forged in the corridors of eternity predating the primordial universe and the Big Bang? What if the rise of spiritual consciousness is not a mere byproduct of cultural factors as many assume but rather an echo resounding from eternity? 

How did you research A Holy Haunting?

I pulled from my own experiences while also referencing and critically evaluating research from theological, cultural, and scientific sources. As depression and anxiety reach epidemic levels and suicide rates skyrocket, the need for a recentering of the sacred has never been clearer. This secular-sacred divide is obstructing our society’s ability to process our collective ailments apart from the power of the liturgy. The holy sacraments, such as baptisms, weddings, and wakes, symbolize that our births, deaths, and those hallowed moments in between are sacred and not trivial. They are gifts from above. The sacraments blow off the collective dust of our humdrum lives and give us a sacred purpose. 

How did you create/acquire the cover art? 

The cover was inspired by a confluence of childhood nostalgia and inspiration from an iconic painting. I remember the first time I saw fireflies. I stood gazing in wonder at an incandescent beam that seemed to radiate from a distance one beautiful summer night in Central Park. For a moment, it was as if Van Gogh’s The Starry Night—which is on display at the Museum of Modern Art just a few miles from where I was standing—literally came to life right before my eyes. I always found it fascinating that Van Gogh painted that masterpiece from the balcony of an insane asylum in a former monastery in France. On nights like these, it would have been lunacy not to believe something greater lay beyond the horizon of the well-lit skyline. Most consider The Starry Night to be Van Gogh’s magnum opus, and as a child, I thought God condensed the stars into fireflies the way his painting did. 

How did you develop your characters? 

Like the iconic song by the Beatles, the journey of faith is like a long and winding road. My book, in short, is a memoir about the many complexities intertwined in our faith journey. I pulled inspiration primarily from my own life and those in my own dear faith community. Honestly, without them, there is no book. They were my muse and the living letters on these pages.

Portions of this Q&A were edited for clarity.