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Among its many profound definitions, we need to remember it is a pilgrim church.

Throughout the pilgrimage of the Hebrews to the Promised Land, Moses had nothing but headaches, trying to keep them unified. They were forever murmuring and going in different directions. Not only did they possess hard hearts, they were also hardheaded.

If we are looking for a diocese or parish where everyone is in unison, we need to correct our perception.

A pilgrim church is anything but perfect; it is forever on its way. To accept this helps us to be more tolerant and understanding of church perplexities. We need to be realistic, understanding this fact of being on a perpetual pilgrimage in search of the tolerance and understanding needed to get to the Promised Land as one people of God.

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Blaise Pascal suggested that all of our miseries stem from the fact that none of us can sit still in a room for one hour. He's right.

There is in us an innate, pathological, fascinating, and holy complexity. Knowing this doesn't make our lives easier, but, if nothing else, it can introduce us to ourselves so that we no longer need to pretend that our lives our simple and deny that we struggle - physically, morally, sexually, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.

Ruth Burrows, the renowned British Carmelite author, begins her autobiography, a wonderfully deep and sensitive book, with the words: "I was born into this world with a tortured sensitivity." Weren't we all!