All of this is to say that there is in the heart of life an almost universal yearning for oneness, for at-one-ment, that never quite goes away. Much of what we call “the experience of God” is fashioned to meet us at this point of our human vulnerability. It was St. Augustine, writing in Confessions, who gave these words to that experience: “Thou, O God, hast made us for thyself alone and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”* That is perhaps what atonement means at its deepest, experiential, religious level. As such it is a legitimate part of our humanity.
