The essence of the Hebrew Bible transmitted by Christianity is separation: between life and death nature and God good and evil man and woman and the holy and the profane.

Every spiritual tradition has this idea of death and resurrection. It's not unique to Christianity.

We always had lutefisk for Christmas dinner after which Dad read from the Norwegian Bible.

My father was Catholic my mother was Protestant and because of that I got Christened in both churches so I've got all these names... but my Dad always called me Mick.

I was born in Corpus Christi Texas the youngest of four girls including my oldest sister Lisa who has special needs. My mom was a special education teacher and my dad worked on the Army base. We weren't wealthy but we were determined to succeed.

I came up poor. My mother only had a fourth-grade education. My dad didn't have any education at all. But they were very structured. They worked hard. You know they didn't complain. They didn't murmur. And they believe in the Christ.

Our last jam session was this past Christmas. Dad played his harmonica mom sang in English and Italian and I played guitar. I'm so happy that we could share that musical experience for one last time.

Like my dad I have a Christmas party most years. I like to celebrate and see as many people as possible.

My mum was raised Jewish my dad is very scientifically minded and my school was vaguely Christian. We sang hymns in school. I liked the hymns bit but apart from that I can take it or leave it. So I had lots of different influences when I was younger.

I was born in 1968 just eighteen months after my sister Chrisse and just one year after Dad passed the bar exam.