Let’s do this well, together!
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart: do not depend on your own understanding.” Proverbs Chapter 3 verse 5
It has just been announced that the Prime Minister, Boris Johnston, has been diagnosed with COVID-19. I wonder if this will give him a different perspective on the strategy for getting the country through the present crisis. When our circumstances change, it often leads us to view an issue from a different position and to change how we think about things. Now while this may all sound very profound, I have to admit the thought came to me when I did my Pilates exercises yesterday, lying on the bedroom floor!
As I lay there peering at the phone screen trying to follow my Pilates teacher’s gyrations, I became aware that the floor under the bed wasn’t as clean as it might be, and there were various objects under the wardrobes which had no right to be there. From the height at which I generally observe the bedroom floor (and to be honest, I don’t observe it closely, mostly I glance at it just long enough to navigate my way around Clive’s discarded footwear, a bone of contention I might add!), the floor looks fine. But getting down to floor level revealed that I’ve been less than thorough with the hoovering, being content to do the minimum to make things look neat and tidy. My prone position also made me look at the ceiling and in particular, the bedroom light fitting ,in a new way. Since I was directly below the light, I had no way of avoiding it and I could see that this was something else I ‘d been neglecting. The fitting is a modern metal arrangement of gracefully entwined arms with small glass shades and there was an alarming amount of dust on all the shades and clinging to the whole arrangement!
That’s what prompted me to think how a shift in our position can lead to a new perspective. Viewing what goes on in the world from our normal place in it, can lead to a comfortable complacency, because we know where and how we fit in. But when we are forced to withdraw from our normal daily existence, as most of us are right now, we become onlookers - spectators rather than active participants and we have time to reflect on things we took for granted.
What are you viewing in a new way today?