People have theories. Kurt Lewin, in many ways the father of group dynamics, is reported to have said that there is nothing so useful as a good theory.

A theory can be likened to a story we tell ourselves to answer three questions: What? Why? How?

When you are in church and someone raises his or her hands, palms up, fingers spread, what is that? What is going on there? What is happening? When you are in church and someone suddenly says, "I feel like we need, really need, to pray for the Premier", why? Why does that person think we all need to pray in that specific fashion? When you are in church, and someone shouts, "Hallelujah!" it means, literally, 'Let us praise the Lord'. So how should we do that? What is the way in which a person should express praise, or is there one way to do that?

A theory explains. A theory is an interpretational explanation, and a good theory is the best explanation possible that explains more of the facts than others.

In a marriage, a committed and intimate relationship, these same kinds of theories emerge. A person tries to make sense of the shared situation, and the person looks at the situation from his or her unique, subjective perspective. Given that, at any given time one might find him or herself trying to explain the what, the why, and the how of it.

When he comes home and turns on the television instead of talking with me, what is he doing, and why is he doing it? When she brings up something that I've talked with her about over and again, what is she doing and why is she doing it?

Often it is not so much what a person is saying, but how he or she is saying it. A theory of 'how' describes the significant tones, facial expressions, and gestures that form the raw process data contributing to what someone thinks is going on.

I have come to realise, given all this, that my theories about other people, especially about their spiritual lives, are my own categories and frames of reference on parade. I think I see them doing something a matter of perception and so related to a theory of what and then I'm off to the races with that. I think I know why they are doing whatever I think I see them doing, and so I'm off to bank with that. My theory of 'how' is more subtle, but I'm sure it is affecting my interpretations as well. These are the stories I'm telling myself about other people, what they are thinking, why they value what they do, and what is going on when they do any particular thing related to spirituality or the expression of religious belief. If there is something I have not yet experienced or thought through, I cannot make up a theory about it (because it's not in my 'tank' so to speak and not available for theory building/story telling).

What am I to do about that? What am I to do when I perceive something so outside my usual categories that I cannot explain it? What am I to do when I'm among people about whom I cannot create an adequate theory of what, why, and how?

Is this where Jean-Luc Marion's saturated phenomenon comes in? Is what I am seeing and experiencing simply overwhelming my capacity to capture a theory? Is what I am experiencing God's presence in my situation?

Some religious practices seem to be ends in themselves; they are idols. The attention goes to them, and it stops there. People who engage in a form of practice focused tightly on the ritual pile great meaning on it as if it, in itself, is all there is to be considered. They claim, "We must have a sermon. We must have moving and contemporary music. We must have ecstatic experience… angelic speech… prophecy." We must, because they in themselves are the goal. We mark our religious and spiritual lives by such things, and we know we are spiritual because of them.

Other religious practices are icons; they point beyond what is going on to something greater. The sermon brings one to the knowledge of God, not to the sermon itself. The music stirs one's spirit so as to yearn for the spirit of God and to respond to the rhythm of God in one's soul. If there is prophetic speech it is recognised as coming from God without having to be announced as such, because the prophecy points to God and not to the prophet, nor the recipients of the prophecy.

The idol is captured by the hands that hold it, the mind that conceives it, and the affection that worships it. The icon is a passing figure, a mere catalyst for the contemplation of that which cannot be held, conceived, or worshipped completely. There are no hands to hold God. There is no mind to conceive God. There are no affections to worship such an infinite Being not in any way can we complete these actions. We can only approximate them so as to point to the completed action in eternity.

At least, this is the story I'm telling myself about these things at this point. This is my theory to explain some of the things that I see. It tells me what I perceive, why things happen the way they do in some churches, and how various kinds of religious behaviour occurs.