I happen to enjoy a very solitary life but I understand the need most people have to congregate and especially to congregate where their faith in goodness can be nourished.
If you stand off and view the fire from a distance you understand it has a brilliance but that it also has some potential for destruction. I'm of the, "you play with fire, you eventually get burnt" sort of folk. However from another's perspective, if you approach the fire and spend some time with it you understand things differently, it warms you, cooks your food, like most attractions it offers sources of companionship, sheds light on your circumstance, etc.
"This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods or men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be eternal fire." and: "Fire lives the death of air, and air lives the death of fire; water lives the death of earth, earth that of water. Measures of it kindling and measures of it going out." (Diogenes Laertius).
Transitions were the flux and fire of Heraclitus, who forever changed Greek Philosophy with one comment..."You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you."
Those who've never learned to swim or handle a vessel fear the water, and those who've never been warmed by a fire fear it's destruction. Inevitably all things hold some element of attraction, where it is drunken indulgence in these attractions which may purchase your soul, rather than the essential quality of any particular thing. Religion is no different. |
