Friday, August 18, 2006

On the Metaphor of the Bridge: Between Mind and Heart

A big bridge is being built in my town, which brings up for me the metaphor of the bridge, useful in relating many aspects of the Baha'i Faith, as in these brief comments made at conference in Cambridge, Mass., last year, noted in a Baha'i World News Service article. -gw
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Mr. Martin likened the process, in which small groups of individuals gather informally to pray and study the Baha'i teachings, to the building of a bridge across a chasm. As more people engage in the process, the bridge is slowly built and the separation that humanity has always made between the mind and the heart gradually disappears.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There's something about the building of bridges (physical and spiritual) that is magical. I think of beautiful suspension bridges and mighty cantilevers. Back in the early 1960s, while I was still at high school (actually it was a British "public" - i.e. private - school), I went with the school engineering society to visit the site of the Severn Bridge, the suspension bridge that crosses the estuary of the River Severn between England and Wales.

We stood on the then unfinished deck, which had been built out from the two banks. There was a gap where the final section of deck would go - and the decks on the two sides were at slightly different levels. It was not until the final section was bolted into place that the bridge could be used. It was not until the final section was bolted into place that the deck described its beautiful, elegant subtle arc of connection.

I'm sure there's a metaphor here for the spiritual life