Many persons see comuity because they are afraid of loneliness. Because they can no longer endure being alone, such people are driven to seek the company of others. Christians, too, who cannot cope on their own, and who in their own lives have had some bad experiences, hope to experience help with this in the company of other people. More often than not, they are disappointed. They then blame the community for what is reallyt tehir own fault. The Christian community is not a spiritual sanatorium. Those who take refuuge in community while fleeing from themselves are misusing it to indulge in empty talk and distraction, no matter how spiritua this idle talk and distraction may appear. In reaity they are not seeing community at all, but only a thrill that will sllow them to forget their isolation for a short time. It is precisely such misuse of community that creates the deadly isolation of human beings. Such attempts to find healing result in the undermining of speecha d all genuine experience and, finally, regignation and spiritual death. from “Life Together” 81-82