In early August, young adults Libby and Emma shared their hopes ahead of their pilgrimage to Taize, France.
Now, on the way home, they explore what's been a unique but challenging step in their Christian journeys.
"Taize gives you space and opportunities to think about things that you don't get the opportunity to think about in normal life."
Transcript
Kathryn Aboud, Discipleship Enabler
We are on the coach coming back from our time in Taize and we're just collecting some reflections.
Emma, we chatted a little bit before Taize about where, where your faith was, and you were saying it was strong, consistent, it's, you know, it's the one thing that you can always come back to. Has this experienced deepened your faith in any way?
Emma
Taize gives you space and opportunities to think about things that you don't get the opportunity to think about in normal life, and so it gives you the time and space to process different parts of your faith that you otherwise wouldn't.
Libby
As I kind of went through the week I started to like the services more and more, and kind of like get them more and sort of like meet with God more and just appreciate like, God being in the stillness as well as in the loudness and the more upbeat worship.
Kathryn
So would you say now you understand maybe the community of Taize a little bit more than when you first got there?
Libby
Yes, I think so. You have to sort of immerse yourself in it and just, it's not something you necessarily go into and understand straight away. You kind of have to like sit with it a bit, sit and reflect on things.
It wasn't like one moment where I thought like, I get this now, it was kind of like a slow process.
Kathryn
And how have you found it coming with a group to Taize?
Libby
Really good. It's been really great to meet other people my age who are Christians and just to like have a lot of time with them.
I feel like I've got to know them pretty well in the space of a week because we've just been doing everything together and gone through some quite difficult bits together at the beginning of the week so we've kind of bonded.
But yeah, it's so interesting just to meet people from different churches, different denominations and see their way of worshipping might be different to yours but we're still united in Christ.
Emma
I think it's been good because we've been doing it with people that we maybe didn't know at the start of the week, and yet these people have made me feel so incredibly loved, more loved than people that are meant to love me, and they've given me the space and the opportunity to process so many different things and ask so many different questions about faith and about life that I wouldn't have asked in normal life.
And they don't find the questions silly and there's no criticism because they love you and they want you to go deeper and learn more. It's just a safe space to question and learn and go deeper.
Kathryn
What would you say to those who are thinking about coming to Taize next year?
Libby
When I came I didn't know what to expect. Definitely just come with an open mind, an open heart.
If you've been to other festivals that are sort of more charismatic, just expect it to be different from that, I would say.
Just be open to what God's saying, or just open to maybe not feeling like you're hearing from God that much, because I feel like I've felt kind of like God's presence and his comfort but not necessarily like him telling me a specific thing, and like that's okay, so like yeah it doesn't have to be like some big amazing thing, but you can just like sit with God and just be quiet and that's quite a powerful thing.