Dietrich says

"Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to us...because Christian community is founded solely on Jesus Christ, it is a spiritual an not a human reality. In this it differs absolutely from all other communities...The basis of the community of the Spirit is truth; the basis of human community of spirit is desire."

I like this. Perhaps this is the point of the church, to show what true community can look like. To paint a contrast between the community of human desire and the community of the Spirit of Truth. In this we are what the Pilgrims (fitting reference inserted as a tribute to the holiday recently observed) envisioned themselves to be: a City on a Hill, shining out the light of Christ as a witness to the work of God in this world.

A confession

In my previous writing I was guilty of projecting my own feelings onto my generation. It was ill-disguised in unnecessary hyperbole and the odd mixed metaphor, and framed with the self-righteous question, but in its essentials it was my cry out into the wilderness. I don't know how to answer the questions it raises, but I do know fom observation that there are a lot of people who think like me.

I left the church for a few years because I didn't know how to face these issues. I still don't. The contradictions, the void within, the sense of purposelessness, the inability to say confidently to myself, "I Know". These things still haunt me, and sometimes, like last night, they flare up into outright depression. I was afraid, and so I hid my personal feelings in a general diatribe.

I do think that these are pressing issues for the church, because I don't think that I am alone (or rather I do feel like I'm alone, but at least I'm not the only one) in this pattern of thinking. I think that it is a product of our time. I left the church because I found it was easier to avoid these questions than to seek their answers. I came back at least in part because I found that even when unsuccessful, the search for answers was more rewarding.

I don't know why the world is the way it is. I don't know where God is, or how to know if he is. I don't know where God wants me, or what he wants me to do. And so I struggle forward, or backward as the case may be, and seek God.

I really feel like the church needs to figure out how to reach individuals who feel this way. The church tends to project a very confident aura, but I think sometimes people need to hear that its okay to not know. They need to hear that I feel the same way, not that I have all the answers they seek.

I don't know. This post doesn't make any sense to me so you should probably just ignore it.