Monday 13 April 2009

Easter Up North


The Easter day service in Manchester centred on an annecdote about a young evangelical Christian whose life centred around his "personal relationship with Jesus". Whilst this usually rings alarm bells for people with a Unitarian view of the historical Jesus, there are perhaps parallels with the Buddhist concept of the "inner guru". It is a way of thinking that chimes with the following passage from Elliot's the Waste Land. It alludes to the psychological phenonenon of seeing a third person in survival situations, as well as Luke xxiv.13-16.


Who is the third who walks always beside you,

When I count, there are only you and I together,

But when I look ahead up the white road,

There is always another one walking beside you,

Gliding wrapped in a brown mantle, hooded,

I do not know whether a man or a woman,

- But who is that on the other side of you?


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