We are immersed in great and marvelous realities -- Creation! Salvation! Resurrection! -- but when we come up dripping out of the waters of baptism and look around we observe to our surprise that the community of the baptized is made up of people just like us -- unfinished, immature, neurotic, stumbling, singing out of tune much of the time, forgetful and boorish. Is it credible that God would put all these matters of eternal significance into the hands of such as us? Many, having taken a good look at what they see, shake their heads and think not. But this is the perpetual difficulty of living a life of love in the community of the beloved. We had better get used to it.

-- Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places