Full Circle

[poliphilo]

When last night's TV film about Florence Nightingale (informative but - as a film- not very good) revealed that she undertook her mission as a result of hearing the voice of God, my reaction was not- as it might once have been- "Dear me, what a loon", but ,"Seems like my kinda gal"- which shows, I suppose, that I've finally completed the circular walk I took off on 22 years ago.

At the time I didn't know it would be circular. I though I was walking away from Christianity for good. But that's not how it works, is it? 

As T.S. Eliot says-

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Also, yesterday evening, I finished Balzac's Le Cure de Campagne- a novel about guilt and redemption which quite unashamedly bangs the drum for old-school catholicism- and, instead of chucking it accross the room, I laid it aside with thoughtful sympathy.

No, I'm not going to ring the bishop and ask for my dog-collar back, but- well- I have to admit the thought has fleetingly crossed my mind. 

What I care about- what I have always cared about most deeply- are the things of the spirit.

Comments

Re: What I care about- what I have always cared about most deeply

[bodhibird.livejournal.com]

I've found that embracing Buddhism has given me back much of what I loved in Christianity. Jesus makes a lot of sense from a Buddhist perspective, and Christianity and Buddhism resemble one another, I think, more than they resemble polytheism or even Judaism and Islam.

Re: What I care about- what I have always cared about most deeply

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've always been attracted to Buddhism- and especially to Zen.

If I chose to use the language of Christianity it's because it's the one I know best. It's to do with familiarity, with a sense of coming home.