By John Cole

People are finding new ways of 'belonging'

(2) A lost language of spirituality

Times are changing, however, - or maybe older healthier ways have not been entirely forgotten. The tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales, seems to have been a defining moment. In that week people, especially the under 40s, caught a glimpse of their own mortality - perhaps for the first time in their lives. Maybe they also half sensed some guilt at how they themselves may have contributed to the death of their idol. The whole experience put spirituality firmly back on the agenda, even if to this day many do not have the language to talk about it. (Click here or on the candle for further reflections)

Discovering this new dimension to their lives can take people naively and potentially quite harmfully in the direction of New Age cults, horoscopes or the National Lottery - but at last it is beginning to be acceptable once again in many places to talk about personal wholeness, perhaps even in due course (dare we hope?) about personal holiness .. and maybe eventually about God.

Meanwhile, much that had shaped community life in an earlier generation (communities based on geography and family commitments, for example) had been broken up during the period when 'Economics ruled - OK?'

Maybe one should have expected this as part of the rotting down of the compost heap - but if so, as with the working of a natural compost heap, the results of these developments may well prove to be far more fertile than we might have hoped.

But, although spirituality is back on the agenda, churchgoing clearly is not. Again we we need to accept that there is little blame to be attached either to others for not coming to church or necessarily to ourselves for making it too difficult. Making Christian worship accessible to people is important, but not at the expense of losing a sense of the transcendent glory of God, which must somehow always be held alongside an overwhelming sense of His presence among us.