- I live in a web of relationships as husband, father, grandfather, brother, friend.
- I live in a particular place: the neighborhood of Jackson Heights in Queens Borough, New York City.
- I live in a particular generation as an “old” Boomer.
- I was shaped by growing up on a dairy farm in Appalachia.
- I have been shaped by 45 years as a pastor of United Methodist Churches.
- I have been shaped by practices of meditation and prayer.
- I have been shaped by the Christian Bible
- I have been shaped by encounters with other faiths, most especially the Reform Judaism of a branch of my family and the Hinduism embodied in the practice of Yoga.
- I have been shaped by every person I have met and every book I have read.
- I have been shaped by my love of writing.
Roger Talbott