Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, described his personal spiritual pilgrimage in four phases. 

His first phase of life was pre-religious chaos -- no order, no directions.

His second phase led to religion as order.  God was the rewarder of order, the punisher of disorder.  There was a strong sense of do’s and don’ts. 

Then when he went to college, he entered his third phase, which he called atheistic.  He shed all pretense of religion and began a no-holds-barred pursuit of truth and love.  He mastered psychiatry and the art of personal healing. 

After twenty-plus years without formal religion, Peck describes what he calls the fourth phase -- waking up surrounded by mystery and grace in a world that is threatened by evil.  And that mystery was drawing him into community.  Mystery, grace, love, community -- a good end to which we might all arrive.