On my morning ‘exercise’-walk I passed our local industrial estate and saw a plate on the wall that said ‘BAY 24’. It was actually reversed, what they call ‘horizontal flip’ in image processing software. I guess that was so a lorry driver could see it correctly in a door mirror. The firm had taken care to make sure the driver saw the ‘correct’ image – though in order to do so, it had to turn things round. The other day I saw a TV show about the Hubble space telescope, and the trouble people went to to make sure it gave a correct and clear image. I wear glasses for long distance, because my eyes don’t give a clear image. Even what we see ‘directly’, though, is a nerve signal from an upside-down image on our retinas which has gone through a load of processes before we know what it means. I don’t think there is anything we can know directly. It’s all just a welter of different signals that (usually) we manage to fit into a world-model. Sometimes our processing goes awry: when I am very tired, I imagine I can discern voices in the sound of the sea or the wind for instance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why do I mention this? Perception is a slippery thing – I don’t think there’s any such thing as direct knowing – it’s all indirect, and mediated through a load of pathways outside and inside the body. Last Sunday’s reading, about Thomas recognising the risen Jesus after being invited to touch him, seems so real, it hits me with a kind of sledgehammer force (although I should point out the story doesn’t mention whether Thomas actually touched Jesus). But perception is a slippery thing. So I believe even this seemingly straightforward story is infused with mystery…. as, more obviously, is today’s reading, about the road to Emmaus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” – though intravenous bleach probably isn’t one of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n