This I believe . . .

I believe in The Church. Not the community, nor even the Christ that the church proclaims, but I believe in The Church. Because it is the one thing in my short, 37 year-old life that I've found I could always depend on.

Yes, I a believer. I am a true believer. Which I thought was my downfall, but is actually my salvation.

I believe in The Church, the living body of Christ.

For The Church is a great repository of spiritual knowledge and wisdom. The problem for too many in the church is they seek easy answers, or simply "best-selling" spirituality. When that happens, the church is cheapened. Yet The Church endures.

The church endures with its vast library and archives of wisdom and knowledge. The church, at its best, is a teacher of alternative wisdom. (God knows the church often fails to live up to its best).

There is an old saying that the purpose of the church is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Yet the challenge in our current culture is that many of us are both comfortable and afflicted.

We all stand in need of God's grace and God's challenge to live a fuller or an abundant life.

I know that I need God's grace. For with her Grace, I have have the courage to move on.