Today I read Faith and Other Flat Tires by Andrea Palpant Dilley. Dilley grew up the daughter of Quaker missionaries in Kenya and then spent her college years at Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington.
After studying at Whitworth Dilley left the church and went searching in the company of men and booze. She pushed the boundaries hard and found herself lonely and confused.
But she kept searching for God and returns to her faith, and this is this young writer’s memoir. Dilley’s a great writer and a great doubter. She came to see her doubting as a form of faith. I resonate a lot with that. Her doubts became a longing for God that led to a faith with which she could ultimately live.
A plus for me was that while she was a student at Whitworth University she was a nanny for Jerry Sittser, a professor at Whitworth. Sittser’s book on grief — A Grace Disguised — is the best book on grieving I’ve read. Sittser writes the forward to Dilley’s book.
