The loss of interiority

There are two kinds of laws. One is those which are created by the institutional church, and which change over time. And then there are the deeper laws, the real laws of God which are built into the very fabric of reality and of our nature and so are changeless. And as any institution would like to do, it tries to concentrate power within itself and therefore it likes to blur, to confuse the distinction between manmade laws and the laws of God. But the scriptures are talking about the laws of God. (…) What explains the joy and the freedom of the psalmist about obeying this structure of reality that he recognises within himself and in his relationship to others and to the community, and on the other hand the modern rejection of religious structures and rules as repressive and exclusive? What has caused this breakdown, I think, is the loss of contemplative experience, loss of interiority, the very thing that children in the classroom are so happy to be allowed to rediscover and experience again.

( Breakthrough by Laurence Freeman )