Reflections

Our minister shared a quote from Paul Tournier’s “Guilt and Grace” during the sermon today...

"It signifies that we do not know ourselves, that we have not had the courage to examine ourselves thoroughly, that we all have a certain fear in carrying out such an examination, of making unpleasant and unflattering discoveries about ourselves. And so, even though we know that everybody has complexes, we are always a little ashamed of our own…complexes, secret imaginations, temptations, vain and unconfessable dreams, a whole world of impulses more or less conscious, often of no clear form, develop within us. They defy the censorship of our will, as we realize with confusion. It is another self which lives in us, which we cannot stifle, and which we fear will be discovered. For we can even have such horrible thoughts that it seems we could not bear the shame should they be revealed. Precisely because everyone keeps them secret, everyone believes also that s/he alone has them…"

A running theme to the thoughts of this weekend! And yet, the worse I know the innate condition of my heart to be, the sweeter the Good News becomes to me.