Chaplain’s Musings – 5th July 2021

Re-Discovering the Classics 1

Stories of magic – and mostly we think here of children’s stories but not exclusively – such stories give us pleasure but also a kind of privilege. We are admitted, at least for the length of this chapter, of this book, into this other world. Pause for the sheer enjoyment of taking you back into the memory of that…

Let me take you to the book “Robinson Crusoe” – a classic !

What is key in this magical world is that it celebrates the poetry of limits.

Crusoe is a man, alone, on a small rock with few comforts just snatched from the sea: the best thing in the book is simply the list of things saved from the wreck. The greatest of poems is an inventory. Every kitchen tool becomes magical because it was rescued from the sea. Every piece of rope suddenly has qualities that are otherworldly because of all the uses that can be imagined for it. Pause for the sheer enjoyment of taking you back to what were for your younger, smaller, self, once ‘Treasures’….

It might be a good exercise, in empty or ugly hours of the day, to look at any mundane ordinary item in your kitchen or on your bookcase or cellar….. and think how very happy one could be to have it rescued from the sinking ship and brought to the solitary island. Pause for the sheer enjoyment of allowing your imagination to give time to such a ‘pointless’ use of your precious time….

Jump back into your own skin. Imagine though what our efforts at achieving a more climate neutral world might look like if we ascribed the magic of rescue to all that we take for granted. Pause and allow that to move you first to prayer and then beyond….

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