Untold Blessing

In the first Bridget Jones film, there's the scene when Bridget turns up to a party in fancy dress. She'd been told it was a type of fancy dress party. She was looking forward to it and made an effort to dress up. When she walked in, everyone else was wearing 'normal' clothes and did the whole look-and-smile-at-what-she's-wearing thing. Bridget was not just different, she was obviously different and on a completely different wavelength to everyone else.

That's how I felt this evening. We had a study group type thing - DVD (Untold Blessing) followed by discussion. I really liked the DVD - good preacher, mix of example and theory (life and theology) etc. I found the following discussion challenging and it's still bothering me. I'm not quite sure why, but I'll try to specify.

There was a reluctance to speak, let alone discuss. It wasn't a thinking silence, but rather I-have-nothing-to-say-and-I'm-not-even-going-to-say-that silence.

When some people did make comments, it seemed almost like they were repeating what they had heard somewhere else. Not that I necessarily disagreed with what they said or had issues with it, but I didn't believe them because they didn't believe/understand/live what they were saying.

I always find it hard to talk about spiritual things, because words just seem so inadaquate. This evening, I think we were all using the same words to mean different things. There were so many barriers to actually understanding each other - age, devotions we practice, life experience etc.

What was interesting was that different people attended than those who came to the previous study group, which made for a different atmosphere. With study group, you get the impression of learning, effort and a willingness to improve. Tonight was advertised more as 'watching a dvd' => a completely different atmosphere.