The Ideal Day

 The first century BCE Roman poet, Horace, once wrote, "The ideal day will never come. It is today, if we make it so."

Which made me think about what my own ideal day might look like. I would wake up early, naturally,  not through an alarm. The weather would be warm and sunny - ideal for taking a walk in Salcey Forest. So I would do my morning sit and then head out into the Forest's natural beauty. 

Refreshed, I would come back and write my Morning Pages before settling down to do some writing. And because it is my ideal day, the words would come easily and I would complete the latest scene for my novel, full of vivid colour and detail.

Then I would go back downstairs and do whatever work needed doing, being fully present to the needs of the day, after which I would be free to spend time on my latest crochet project. At the moment, I'm working on a throw for a friend, and am getting close to finishing it.

During the day, I would hear that the Russians have withdrawn from the Ukraine and that the United Nations has launched two initiatives, one to end world poverty and the other to combat climate change and that all the countries of the world had signed up to both. (well, I can dream...)

In the evening, pleasantly tired, I would sit with my husband in the lounge, watching a programme we both enjoy, with the cat purring on my lap. Then I would have a nice warm bath, before going to bed with a good book. 

I count myself blessed that this ideal day is often a truth, rather than an ideal. What does your ideal day look like?

Spoiled by Abundance

 This week's quotation, by German-language writer, Elias Canetti, has me puzzled: "You cannot live in a really beautiful city in the long run - it drives out all longing."

Does it? Really? It sounds as though he is saying people become jaded and cynical if they are surrounded by too much beauty, and begin to take it for granted. But I don't agree. It is true that close familarity can stale the sense of wonder, but only if we let it.

I believe it is always possible to recapture our sense of wonder, through sacred living - by weaving moments of attention into our days. We've lived near Northampton for the last thirty plus years, but I still sometimes look up beyond the banal shop fronts and admire the architecture of the buildings. I can think of four, both ancient and modern, straight away. First, the glorious Charles Rennie Mackintosh building that is 78, Derngate; I couldn't find a licensable photo on Google, but it is a spectacular example of Mackintosh's attention to detail. 

Second, the Victorian gothic splendour of the Guildhall, 

(photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Third, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Sheep Street, which is a Norman round church (again I couldn't find an image), and the pointing finger of the National Lifts Tower (better known to locals as the Northampton Lighthouse) which is visible for miles around in all directions, the sight of which means that they are nearly home to generations of Northamptonians.

(photo: Wikimedia Commons)

And that is only the ones I thought of straight away. So no, Mr Canetti, I do not believe that familiarity stales our sense of wonder and longing, unless we wander around in a state of distraction, our eyes looking downwards to our mobile phones and forget to look up and see the beauty all around us.

The Nature of Chance

 The French poet and novelist, Anatole France, once wrote, "Chance is God's alias when He doesn't want to reveal Himself."

Hmm. I'm not so sure about that. By which I mean, I'm not convinced that God directly intervenes in the affairs of our world. I know that many Christians believe this, but I wouldn't put it quite so precisely, quite so unequivocally. I would rather say, there are moments of grace in our lives, when God gives us a nudge. I have blogged about what I mean by grace here. 

I believe that God does occasionally give us nudges, by heightening our awareness of a situation, of a particular moment in time, so that we can decide what to do, in which direction to head, how to respond. But it is our choice, our God-given free will, that makes the decision. I don't believe that God would ever take that away from us, by direct intervention.

I also believe that it is up to us to be sufficiently awake to be aware of these moments of grace in our lives, so that we seize the chance that is in front of us and make the best of it, for ourselves and others. This we can do through what I call sacred living, weaving moments of attention into our lives, and noticing the miracles, wonders, and moments of serendipitous grace that surround us.

Appreciating Beauty

 Like many of us, I enjoy visiting new places and exploring them. In the last month or so, I have enjoyed visiting both Pembrokeshire and mid-Wales and glorying in the beautiful landscapes. So Ralph Waldo Emerson's words resonate with me: "We enjoy travelling the world to find beauty, but we have to carry it within us, otherwise we won't find it."

There are two ways of walking in the world: blindly or attentively. Sometimes, we turn into "walking heads", so full of our thoughts that we simply do not see the beauty around us. And that is such a waste... I have sometimes "woken up" part way through a walk round our village or in the Forest, and have realised that I was thinking about something completely different, and had not been present at all to the beauty around me.

And there always is beauty, even in city streets. In fact, I find it astonishing, on the rare occasions when I visit cities these days, the amount of green that is there. And of course, there is also beauty in man-made objects like buildings and statues, and street art... even advertisement hoardings can be beautiful. As are people.

But we have to be awake to it, have to be attentive to it. We have to "carry it within us", as Emerson says. Otherwise, we will not find it.

Last year, I wrote a blogpost about miracles here. And I wrote, "Our world is full of miracles, if we have eyes to see." Which is exactly what Emerson is talking about, but about beauty, rather than miracles. And I finished the post with a marvellous prayer which Rachel Naomi Remen shared in her wonderful book, My Grandfather's Blessings. I would like to repeat it here, as it is as true about beauty as it is about miracles. Because beauty is a miracle...

"Days pass and the years vanish

and we walk sightless among miracles.

Lord, fill our eyes with seeing

and our minds with knowing.

Let there be moments when your Presence,

like lightning, illuminates

the darkness in which we walk.

Help us to see, wherever we gaze,

that the bush burns, unconsumed.

And we, clay touched by God,

will reach out for holiness and

exclaim in wonder,

'How filled with awe is this place

and we did not know it.'"

May we all have the sight to perceive the everyday miracles in our lives and the beauty all around us. Amen

Passion + Discipline = Bliss

 I found this week's quotation, from Yehudi Menuhin, one of the greatest violinists of the last century, fascinating. as it could be read in two different ways. It says, "Bliss is above all moderation."

And I realised that this could be taken in two ways:

        1 [Bliss is above] [all moderation]

        2 [Bliss is] [above all] [moderation].

Which mean very different things. Did he mean that bliss is the most important thing and that it trumps moderation in every case? Or did he mean that bliss is all about moderation? And what does moderation mean, anyway? I checked the word on the wonderful website Power Thesaurus, and was presented with alternatives which included "restraint", "control" and "prudence". 

So I googled 'Yehudi Menuhin quotes' to see what else he had written, and found that he seems to be advocating both bliss and moderation. In one quote, he wrote, "Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous." Which seems to suggest that he values the disciplinary aspects of music - how it enables unanimity, continuity and compatibility - balance. He also asked, "Do we not find freedom along the guiding lines of discpline?"

He was clear that if he wanted to play well, he would need to work hard. He wrote, "To be an outstanding musician, you have to be very attentive to the smallest detail, and willing to have infinite patience in the pursuit of your ideal. You require absolute control and professionalism."

 

On the other hand, he also wrote, "Improvisation is the expression of the accumulated yearnings, dreams, and wisdom of the soul." And said that "the violinist is that peculiarly human phenomenon distilled to a rare potency - half-tiger, half-poet." He saw music as "a path between ourselves and the infinite."

So I come to the conclusion that Menuhin believed that it is necessary to combine your passion for your craft (whatever that is) with the discipline to practice it regularly, so that you will be able to achieve greeat things. It is when you combine the passion and the discipline that the bliss results.

I recognise the truth of this from my own discipline as a writer. I love writing and know that if I want to become the best writer I can be, I need to sit down every day and write something. And that when I do, the result will sometimes be blissful. And that is worth all the times of frustration and struggle which are a concomitant part of the writer's life.