The priest holds community and its collective identity. The prophet holds the prophetic vision — not because he is an ideologue (like the philosopher or academic) but because his life and inquiry has stripped him and led him to an experience of longing which pulls him unavoidably from the shores of belonging out into the harbour of his own loneliness. On the other hand, the priest is deconstructing the prophetic heartbeat of his tradition, working to pull back the mystic from the harbour, to clothe him, to hide his wounds, to cover his nudity in marble and gilt, and to assuage the congregation’s fears of aloneness and pain. He discourages the flowering of new prophetic vision as he discourages his members from taking their own solitary journeys out into the sea. Within this environment, fear and spiritual deflation are the norms; and to follow in the footsteps of the tradition’s own mystic roots is considered dissidence and grounds for exile.

Perhaps the depths of loneliness are the closest we ever get to that light they call “God”.