"Imus Can, And Will, Talk to Sally Quinn About Anything"

Sally Quinn's five favorite songs were a bit less contemporary than the selections other guests have submitted, so Imus kindly asked her to explain some of her choices.

"Because of You" was Quinn's parents' favorite song, and "Evergreen" is her song with her husband Ben Bradlee. As for "You Are My Sunshine," Quinn sang it to her son when he was a very sick baby, emphasizing the line, "Please don't take my sunshine away."

"This is great that you tell me this about these songs after I've already criticized them," Imus told his guest, a Washington Post writer who, with Jon Meacham, runs the "On Faith" blog on the Post's website. It has quickly become one of the site's most popular features, Quinn boasted.

"It's the best conversation going," she said, adding that some of the most ardent followers are atheists, agnostics, and non-believers. "Everyone is searching for meaning in their lives. Everyone is searching for some sense of the divine."

She compared "On Faith" to a smorgasbord: "You go, and you listen, and we ask really interesting questions every week."

Last week's question was whether part of the disappointment people feel about President Obama's first year in office has to do with him not being the messiah-like figure that so many Americans believed he was.

"Part of the let down in the last year is that he doesn't walk on water," Quinn said about Obama. Though a President should not become a spiritual figure, Quinn believes people long for their leaders to transcend traditional roles.

Imus admitted he found in the Imus Ranch what he had likely been searching for through drugs and alcohol in the 1980s.

"One can find enormous satisfaction in helping other people," he said. "But not just by writing a check. You actually have to put in the time."

Quinn follows that same mantra; every Thursday, she and her 27 year-old learning disabled son, named Quinn, visit an inner city school near their Washington, DC home and work with 13 learning disabled kids there.

"These kids are beaten up, and bullied, and the teachers don't have time for them," she said. "And no one will ever have lunch with them."

Quinn and her son, who experienced similar discrimination when he was in school, have a weekly "power lunch" with these kids, where they talk, give hugs, and provide words of encouragement. Teachers report it is having an incredible effect.

Much to his parents' joy, and probably because of all the hugs he received over the years, Quinn himself will soon marry a woman his mother described as "an angel."

"Every day I have to pinch myself and say, 'This is a miracle,'" she said.

To which we can only say: Amen.

-Julie Kanfer