searching for something I used to call God

I went to church today. I sneaked into the back so as not to be noticed. It was cold. I knew no-one. I hadn't been for months but I wanted to be there.

Nothing spectacular happened. No visions of Christ, no revelation. Yet I did find something.

I found that I am closer to the person I want to be when I am bowed in reverence and prayer. I cannot shake this desire to commune with God.

Although I have become more sophisticated (so i think), still the green shoots of spiritual longing appear from between the concrete cracks of my soul.

I have to nurture those shoots to be fully alive. If I don’t, one day they will disappear. For me, spiritual growth is the willingness to reflect on my life and have the courage to change. We cannot change ourselves or the world without this.

Fundamentalist religion is the opposite of spirituality. Dogma replaces the vulnerability of opening yourself to the light and love of God.

Yet we all get stuck. Decision by decision. Compromise after compromise, suddenly we find that we are no longer as sharp. We legitimise the very things we vowed we would never accept. We have become what we said we would fight against.

Bono was asked in his interview Mitchka Assayas for Bono on Bono what he would say if he could meet the person he was at 21. Bono’s response surprised me. He said that he would tell that young man that he was so right. Right to hold such high ideals, right to abandon himself to God and his faith – right to constantly fight the encroachment of the world.

IF we are to transform this world and the injustice that pervades it, surely we all need to be on this journey. It is not something that happens by accident. We have to pursue it.

But it is worth it. It turns living into a full colour, digitally enhanced experience.