1/7/2004 05:59:29 PM|||Amy|||Have you ever thought some things are beautiful because they are cloaked in an iridescent layer of some idea, concept or notion which attracts you, but then as you get closer you realize that what you thought was beautiful is not. As you get closer and really examine the thing, you realize that it’s full of flaws and while it may or may not repulse you, it is definitely something very different than you had thought before.

Catholicism is this way for me. From an emotional and knowledgeable distance, Catholicism has always seemed so poetic, romantic and lovely to observe. All those cathedrals which make your heart pound just to look at them, all that lovely ritual which keeps you solidly footed on the rocky terrain of faith, and the rounded tones of the prayers which strike just as solidly at your innermost thoughts as any of the words of the most respected poets. Yet, then, you get up close and after you’ve steeped awhile in the ritual and the art, you see that it has just as many problems as the Protestant religions, but not, I think, more.
|||107352002971266186|||Trick of the Light