Stopping off at the spiritual travel lodge

I had an interesting conversation with an elderly Englishman who had converted to Buddhism. We exchanged notes on how we had come to believe what we did. He told me how he'd gone into a Buddhist centre and just felt Buddhism was for him. I explained that I'd grown up in a Christian family, and how even though the beliefs that had been handed down to me looked, in my teenage years, a bit like a piece of obsolete furniture, on closer inspection I found that they were more like a priceless antique.

He was quite taken by this description. I then asked him if his beliefs were now fixed or if he was still on a journey. People are always on a journey, he said (meaning he was!) and then he said something that I didn't expect him to say "You never know, you might convince me to convert to your faith."

Christmas is a good time to invite people to church, whatever their faith background. For like my Buddhist friend their current faith position is more like a stop at a spiritual travel lodge than arrival at their final, settled belief.