A big ask: Neil Morgan’s Thought for the Week
‘As a psychiatrist, I would test a patient’s mental functioning by asking them for the meaning of a proverb.’
Here are three random associations – illustrations, if you like, followed by a question. These fell into my mind all at once.
First the three associations. Number one: If I sew together a blue piece of cloth and a yellow one, I might use it as a tablecloth. But if I then run it up a flagpole, it changes! It has become a flag, and a symbol of a whole nation – Ukraine, in this instance, and so, for many, a further symbol of freedom.
In number two, imagine a Zen master who is asked about truth, and points to the moon. The student closely examines his finger with a magnifying glass. If you mistake the finger for the moon, you will never know the real moon.
Third, I had a memory, from long ago now, of how, as a psychiatrist, I would test some aspects of a patient’s mental functioning by asking them for the meaning of a proverb.
‘What does “A rolling stone gathers no moss mean?”’ I would gently ask. Most people would reply, ‘Well, if you don’t stay anywhere very long, you won’t put down any roots’. But some would say, ‘It means what it says! If you roll a stone down an incline, then no moss will grow on its surface!’
This is a sign of what is called ‘concrete’ thinking in opposition to ‘symbolic’ thinking. It often signals that something has gone wrong. It is a subtle sign of decreasing capacity for complexity in the patient’s mind.
My question is this: are the truths of religion concrete – literal – or are they symbolic? And I would further ask: if they are symbolic, what are they symbolic of exactly?
Reflecting on all this, it occurs to me that Quakers have steadfastly done without images and effigies in their Meeting houses for more than three and a half centuries. It seems to me that this discipline helps Friends avoid what might be called the error of idolatry: that is, of taking a thing, an image, for what it stands for – which is perhaps itself a sort of concrete thinking.
I believe all this allows for wider, deeper, and more far-sighted reflection on what the truths of religion mean. Perhaps that freedom is the essence of Quakerism.
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