I was having a brief conversation with Sunflower just last week. About the church. And all its religious drudgeries. And she asked me what keeps me going on despite the grave disillusionment I've faced as a result of structural oppression, power abuse, and mechanical religiosity.

What keeps me going is the reality that God doesn't seem to have given up on his church; and if that is so, then neither should I. For if I give up on something that God refuses to let go of, that would make me guilty of abandoning the dream of the Kingdom. As long as God sees hope in this Body that has now evolved into a mechanical and institutional religious entity, I can't simply rely on the assessments of my own myopic sensibilities.

And I'm constantly reminded that this church, this organic body that has now been turned into an institutional entity - which is largely powerless to lift the helpless, which sustains the life of the middle-class urbans, which gives little space to the downtrodden, which professes a religious belief but largely ignores its practical implications on its every day life, which administers the instituted sacraments but neglects the sacramental life, which proclaims the word but ignores its radical capacity for fear of inconvenience - is also MY church.

For all that it is, I am a part of it. I know God is dealing with his church, because he's dealing with me. And I'm helpless to affect structural and organisational change, save for my own capacity to be the change I desire to see in this Body. I feel pain because I'm a part of it, and I cannot be numb. Because numbness drives me into the mechanical religious life, which would render my service effective towards institutions rather than people and my devotion towards organised religion rather than God.

Pain keeps me knowing that I'm still embracing the dream of the Kingdom.