This morning I have been thinking about the importance of the Church, if only to give us something to react against, for, if we are sent to Church at an early age, our mind is opened up to concepts, which otherwise might have evaded us for the whole of our lives.
Should the gap between the teachings of the Church and our childhood's perception of the world be more like a gulf, then surely a challenge might be to form a bridge between our personal perceptions and this totally different take or perspective on existence.
Incongruities abound.
As a child, my first layer of incongruities consisted of those in my natal village. These were, going from east to west: -
School, The Ivy Tree, Church, Manor House, Pub, the Telephone box, the Village Shop and Post Office, the Village Hall, the Bridge, my house, an old and dilapidated chapel and then, a mile outside the village, The Woods. Outside this 'known' childhood map, which was indeed a 'me' map, extended an unknown, which went north, south, east and west, into the towns and cities, other lands and seas, alien and strange, to my childhood-village-me-map.
The second layer of my perceived world of 'beyonds' and incongruities was vertical, from the soil I stood upon, upwards as far as my eyes and imagination could see. This last perception merged with ideas about God.
Is it, then, the human state, that mind and body should travel in different directions?
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