Dunblane Cathedral Magazine Summer 2008
8 pages
Published by
Dunblane Cathedral
Copyright :
All rights reserved
No.
200 SUMMER 2008
http://www.
dunblanecathedral.
org.
ukADDRESS
LOOKING TWICE
FROM THE MINISTER
BY the end of this month
the schools will close and for
children seven long weeks of
summer will stretch ahead
of them.
Can you remember...
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No.
200 SUMMER 2008
http://www.
dunblanecathedral.
org.
ukADDRESS
LOOKING TWICE
FROM THE MINISTER
BY the end of this month
the schools will close and for
children seven long weeks of
summer will stretch ahead
of them.
Can you remember
how you felt on the first day
of the school holidays - that
sense of anticipation you had
of a whole summer at the
disposal of your imagination?
That first day of the holidays
was always the best.
“You must learn to look at the world twice if you
wish to see all there is to see.
”
But I remember someone
writing about the summer he
lost his imagination.
It was
the first day of the holidays
for him.
He had yearned for
the time to come.
Memories
of the previous summer were
still strong, long days spent
playing in the garden, racing
miniature cars and trucks
with his friends.
When the last bell of the
school year rang, he ran
home to get everything ready,
and next morning he hauled
it all outside.
With the sun
on his back he sat down in
his special place surrounded
by his toys and waited for the
delicious feeling to creep all
over him.
Paradise Lost
But nothing happened.
He
picked up his favourite car
and ran its wheels over the
ground - “Vroom,” he roared,
as he had done so many times
before.
But this time it
wasn’t the sound of an engine
he heard; it was the sound of
a boy’s voice pretending to be
an engine, and he suddenly
felt self-conscious.
One by one he tried all
his old tricks, but none of
them worked.
The magic
had gone.
He stood up and
walked away.
That was, he
wrote, the summer he lost his
imagination.
When did you lose your
imagination? Because it’s
the difference between being
a child and being an adult,
isn’t it? Children employ all
their senses, but we don’t.
They drape towels over their
shoulders and become kings
in ermine cloaks with the
toilet brush as their sceptre.
We just complain when we
can’t dry our hands.
We don’t have time to
imagine,foronething.
Weare
too busy working, managing,
earning, striving, competing,
organising, surviving.
We’ve
been taught to think, not to
imagine.
We have to deal
with the real world where
there is real work to be done
and where imagination will
never help pay the mortgage.
Loss of Mystery
So when did you lose your
imagination? It’s not only
an individual experience, but
an evolutionary one as well.
As our ability to control the
world has increased, our
respect for its mystery has
decreased.
Our chief interest
in anything - a tree, a
creature, a hillside or another
person - is its usefulness to us
and not its existence in and of
itself.
We have forgotten how
to submit ourselves to life on
earth.
We have become the
worst kind of consumers,
devouring creation and failing
to enjoy it.
There are Native Americans
who speak about ‘looking
twice’ at the world.
First,
they say, you have to open
your eyes to see what’s there
- to notice the dew on the
grass, the steam rising from
the damp earth.
Then you
must look again, directing
your gaze beyond what is
visible to see the mystery and
wonder of life itself.
“You
must learn to look at the
world twice if you wish to see
all there is to see,” writes a
Blackfoot Indian.
Consider the Lilies
It’s not a new idea.
“Look at
the birds of the air,” said Jesus,
inviting us to the same kind
of vision and imagination.
“Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow.
” Look at
the fig tree; look at seeds,
weeds, coins, sheep, nets and
pearls.
Look at farmers and
fishermen and women baking
bread, Jesus said, reminding
us that God is to be found in
the most ordinary details of
our ordinary lives.
He may
be hidden but he’s there, if
we look not once, but twice.
But, in order, to do that,
you have to re-discover
your imagination.
Let your
children teach you how.
Colin G McIntosh
OPEN GARDENLooking ahead to the summer months, Linda and Colin
plan to open the manse garden after the Services on
Sunday 17 August and invite everyone to come round
and enjoy a summer glass of wine together.
The normal
Sunday coffee will be cancelled that day but, in the
event of inclement weather, the event will move to the
halls.
Members, friends, children and visitors will all
be welcome.
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