That I never know what I think until I write it out is not a new idea. Joan Didion said as much. As did Flannery O’Connor. As did scores of other writers.

Though I’ve accepted this as truth—that I needed to sit at my laptop and plunk out words and then sentences for thoughts to emerge, to roll around, to take shape—for nearly as long as I’ve been writing, it’s just been in the past few years that I’ve come to realize this: I don’t really even—well, hardly, even—believe what I believe about God until I write it down.