In a parish like All Saints Honolulu it is easy to be plagued by that phenomena which C.S. Lewis describes as “The Inner Ring” —that overwhelming desire to be a part of some group-within-a-group where the really real things happen. Our lives (especially at places of belonging, like church) undergo the constant ebb-and-flow of “the desire to be inside the local Ring and the terror of being left outside.”

The “Inner Ring” phenomena casts a kind of illusion, confusing us about the goal of life in the Body of Christ…