Ben Myers explains why he goes to church at Faith and Theology:
There are people who say that religion is a crutch, and I have never taken offence at that description. There have been times when I’ve gone to church feeling the need for personal forgiveness or comfort or strength or whatever. But the older I get – I’m not very old of course, but I’m not quite as young as I used to be either – the more I feel that my faith is not primarily a personal thing but a way of sharing the common lot with everybody else.
I go to church sometimes not needing comfort for my own private griefs but seeking consolation for the slow unfolding trainwreck that is called human history. I go to church sometimes hoping to find forgiveness not for myself but for my ancestors, my parents, my children and their children who will one day be born and will have to live (who knows how?) in whatever diminished world that I bequeath to them…..
I go to church and take bread and wine not necessarily because I feel hungry but because the common human condition is, at bottom, hunger and thirst and nothing more. It is the hunger of my mothers and fathers that I am feeding when I take the consecrated bread…..
Read it all here.
h/t to Win Bassett