by Stanley Anderson » July 12th, 2007, 9:58 pm
I suddenly have this image in my head that seems to provide, for me at least, a kind of "explanation" of how the Catholic Church "works" in relation to all the other Christian churches out there (Warning: in its gung-ho Catholic enthusiasm, it will be possibly offensive to some -- sorry, my imagery and my opinion here, disagree if you like).
The image is of an old-fashioned train with a large powerful engine and the traditional looking snowblade in front to clear away whatever may be blocking the tracks up ahead. Connected to the engine is the fuel car (not sure of the correct terminology here -- I'm sure Erekose can correct me:-) filled with the coal that is used to run the engine. And the train has many cars attached behind filled with passengers.
Most of those passengers are glad to be on the train, knowing that it is what will get them to their destination, though some have erected engine "facades" onto the front of their car so that they can imagine that their car is the engine. Back behind the train are smaller trains with their own engines, though these trains have only very small or non-existent snowblades and fuel cars.
On the other hand, the fuel car on the lead train is so filled to overflowing that excess coal is continually falling off to the side so that the trains further back can stop and pick up the excess lumps to use as fuel for their engines when they get low (it is mere irony that some of their blades actually end up driving some of that potential fuel away from their engines making it harder to gather in the long run).
In addition, there are a whole slew of those "hand cars" (again, not sure what they are called -- the ones you see in movies where a person or two pumps up and down on the rocking crossbar handle?) trailing behind plugging away as fast as they can to get to the final destination.
Many of them will probably make it there, though they may have a mistaken impression that they are making it on their own "interpretive" steam and strength, not realizing what has been cleared away for them or fueled them so that they could travel relatively unhindered down the tracks, nor even that the basic design of their vehicles were rendered as variations from the lead train.
They all, including the lead train, recognize and appreciate Who first laid down the track for the journey to be made, and they all have the same destination. But many do not realize that that the same track-builder also directed the construction of that lead train to allow the track to be used efficiently. Some even consider that lead train to be of inferior or even dangerous design and construction and they intentionally refuse to board it, though most probably only got on board the particular train they happened to be next to when they found the tracks in the first place (and indeed, they may not even be aware that there IS a lead engine that has all the original safety equipment and power to finish the journey with confidence.)
Well, there it is. I'll leave it to you to figure out what corresponds to what (it seems pretty obvious to me, whether one agrees with the correlation or not, but if it is too opaque, I'll be glad to "translate":-) Again, it is only a kind of spur-of-the-moment image that popped into my head, so I hope it has some kind of explanatory benefit without being too offensive or obscure.
--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.