The Crux

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?



...

The Child

The child was always longing to escape.

Many thoughts later

I've looked and looked for answers,
and the more I look, the more questions, more questions, do I find.

Oh, yes, and oh, yes!
Parallels and more, and yet more, do I
draw,

Yet, no answers, no answers, do I
find.

And, so, and, so,
I shall draw.

'Even scientific studies seem to suggest that there is a correlation between excessive self-cherishing and damage to one's physical well-being.'
[pp. 81-82, 'The Dalai Lama's Book of Transformation', Thorsons 2000]


'Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.'
Prov. 16:3, King James Version


'We must maintain a delicate balance; trusting God as if everything depended on him, while working as if everything depended on us.'
footnote to Prov. 16:3, p. 1101, Life Application Bible, King James Version

On Gender

He sang in silence,
Eternal
She was the Silence,
Everlasting.

Author's own

If we want the Truth, was the first word a mistake?

'One of the strongest Buddhist convictions is that it is not possible to express in words what is most real, sublime and ultimate. For this reason even the finest, most lucid and consistent doctrine can only be regarded as provisional and as obscuring the ultimate truth rather than revealing it.'
[p. 81, 'Buddha: [foreword by the Dalai Lama] William MacQuitty, 1969, Thomas Nelson and Son Ltd.]