Categories: uncategorized
Date: 21 March 2008 16:58:37
I had a long drive yesterday up to Beverley, via Hull to do a rehab visit. In order to stave off the boredom I was listening to some of the CD talks I had from Greenbelt 2007. One of the talks was by Dave Tomlinson and it is entitled Finding a Second Innocence. I have listened to this talk several times, and my reaction to it has changed over a period of time. The first time I listened to it was still out of church and really, really struggling with my faith. The second time I was starting make moves back into church, still sceptical but starting to be more hopeful. This time, I am happy attending a church and feeling as though this might be my spiritual home for a while. Each time I have listened to this talk I have been moved, the first time I cried my way through it and this time I heard echoes of a voice of hope. Something I haven't hear for a while. Here is one of my favourite quotes from it. It seems to sum up my experience over the last few years.
“The assumption is often made that those who struggle with doubts and questions, those who drift away from the church or even from mainstream Christianity are in someway spiritually substandard, that they lack the grit or the piety to pursue the Christian faith. And yet the reality is often quite the reverse, frequently these are the people who are on a genuine spiritual journey, people who have outgrown religious certainties in their quest for a deeper reality of faith. And those who stay and look like they believe everything from A to B are often actually doing so merely out of conformity.” - Dave Tomlinson