Reality

I've been a bit melancholy of late, and there have been temptations to allow this melancholy to be expressed in sinful behaviour. I've seen a lot of the news lately as a test, a temptation to put all my faith in those people who are to bring Christ to us. While two of those men are now disappearing from view in sudden and shocking ways, it allows me to realise that my faith goes beyond those people who present the Gospel to me, and that it lies in the one who will never disappear.
I have reflected on the possibility or impossibility of leaving the Church. I feel that to leave the Church based on the revelation that people commit egregious sins, are unkind, or whatever, would be extremely stupid. Yet I do know that people have left the Church for those reasons. For me, I find them shocking and infuriating at first, but then I remember that the Church is a hospital, a rehab clinic for weak-willed and fickle sinners. It confirms the Church's mission - to save.
That said, last night I read a more credible - and thus disorientating - reason to leave the Church. The person was no longer interested in her because "there are better ways of looking at reality than the box of medieval Western thought".

"What if he's right?" I thought. "What if the Catholic Church's teachings don't really match reality? Or what if they have a restricted view of reality? Does it really see the big picture?"
I then thought of Eastern cultures and my own ignorance of them. I thought of various places in Africa, Asia, the Americas. I thought of how few still believe in the Catholic faith. For a moment I was reeling.

Then I looked up, and the crucifix hanging on my bedroom wall caught my eye.
That is reality. That is the human condition hanging there, having been subjected to the worst of humanity.
The symbol of the crucified Christ is the symbol of the reality we live in, the true reflection of the human condition.
The beautiful calligraphy of Islam is too abstract. The fat golden Buddha is too distant. The elephant-headed Ganesh is too strange. The nature of the pagans is too mundane. The microscope looks too closely and misses the big picture. The telescope looks too far away and has its head in the clouds.

Jesus nailed to the cross shows every injustice of humanity. Jesus' cry to the Father reveals the transcendence of God.
This isn't just some medieval Western thought. This is reality on display.

From Wikipaintings.org