Spiritual Quote of the Day (Benjamin Cheever, on Church as Sanctuary for Man, ‘The Homesick Animal’)

“I find it endlessly heartening to walk up the aisle, look into the pews, and see that when going up to take Communion, the men have often left their car keys unguarded, the women their pocketbooks. Church was once a sanctuary, a place where outcasts and even criminals could save themselves from the mob. And who among us is not a stranger in this world? Man is the lonely, the homesick animal. Homesick when he travels, and homesick when he stays at home.”—Essayist-novelist Benjamin Cheever, “Judge Not,” in Joyful Noise: The New Testament Revisited, edited by Rick Moody and Darcey Steinke (1997)