My identity came from the town where I grew up, my family's rootedness, and from the family I chose to create. The choices take longer, are changed frequently, and each change causes a subsequent crisis in identity. We parents of today's post-adolescents were teens or young adults at the time of the Second Vatican Council. We had grown up with Latin, had rejoiced in the new liturgy, had filled out college religious studies programs, and fought for the reforms of the Council. Prayer in our childhoods had been limited to rote, memorized prayer, and we delighted in teaching our children to talk to God in their own words, to read Scripture, and to ask all the questions we had not been allowed to ask.
Religion is meant to be a bridge between the sacred and the secular.
For centuries, the bridge was the focus, its rules, its laws, its control. But we taught our children they could approach God directly, and when they grew impatient with us, they simply jumped in the river and swam. It is not that they are not spiritual. They are seeking spiritual directors in larger numbers than any other group in history. They have made spiritual books such as The Celestine Prophecy best sellers.