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Resources - Meditations
This and That
Preparing for winter
Harry Burggraaf
“Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing and
benefits those who see the sun.
Wisdom is a shelter... it preserves the life of it’s possessor.”
(Ecclesiastes 7)
There is a wonderful, heartwarming, children’s story by Leo Lionni about a family of field mice who have their home in an old stone wall near a barn and a granary. However bad times have fallen on the farm and the barn is abandoned and the granary empty. Since winter is not far off the mice are busy gathering whatever corn and nuts and wheat and straw they can find. They work day and night. All except Frederick, a sleepy, dreamy, contemplative mouse.
When the other mice ask Frederick why he is not
working, but sits and stares and dreams and seems half asleep he
replies, “I do work. I gather sunrays for the cold dark winter days. I
gather colours from the meadows, for winter is grey. I gather words, for
the winter days are long and many, and we’ll run out of things to say.”
The winter days come and the field mice snuggle into their hideout in
the stone wall. Initially there is lots to eat, and they tell stories of
foolish foxes and silly cats. But little by little the nuts are nibbled,
the straw is gone, the corn is only a memory and the hideout grows cold
and no one feels like chatting.
The cold and hungry mice turn to Frederick for his supplies.
He tells them to close their eyes, “Now I send you the rays of the sun, do you feel their golden glow”, and as Frederick speaks the field mice begin to feel warmer. He tells them of blue periwinkles and red poppies in the yellow wheat and green leaves, and the colours are painted in their minds.
He speaks the words he has gathered,
“Who scatters snowflakes? Who melts the ice?
Who spoils the weather? Who makes it nice?
Who grows the four-leaf clovers in June?
Who dims the daylight? Who lights the moon?”
And they thrill to the poetry of his wisdom.
In the hectic busyness of our twenty first century it seems incredibly difficult to be a Frederick; to sit long enough to gather the rays of the sun; to be observant and contemplative enough to assimilate the colours of life; to spend times just listening, reading, learning, absorbing words and wisdom.
We are inundated with the quick news-grab, the instant programme, the all-there-is-to-learn-in-one-easy-lesson event.
The Bible needs to be reduced to a cartoon strip for
teenagers to read it. The poignant story of the Hunchback of Notredame
is captured in a skitty, flighty, superficial Disneyesque animation.
‘Let’s grab a quick bite at McDonalds’ displaces quality family time at
the dinner table. A musical piece is woven on three guitar chords.
In an era obsessed with ‘gathering nuts and wheat and straw’ the
challenge for the Christian home is to lead children and teenagers and
ourselves beyond superficiality, and on to ‘gathering sun’s rays,
colours and words.’
At a time when information tends to substitute for
real knowledge, where style replaces substance and skills and technique
take over from true wisdom we need to cultivate life and character of
greater depth, as difficult as that may be. By all means let’s enjoy the
discovery of a new CDRom and the Internet on our home computer system.
Technology too is a gift of the Creator. But also let’s explore the
heritage of good books, Tolstoy’s ‘War and Peace’, Tolkien’s ‘Lord of
the Rings’, Dickens, C.S.Lewis, Tim Winton.
Discuss the football and the weather and the latest Rock concert at the
tea table or over supper, but also invest time and energy in family
devotion, study of the Bible, contemplative prayer, examining the ethics
of the latest advance in genetic engineering, sharing a critique of the
newspaper editorial column.
Go to the latest whiz-bang, super-special-effects
movie if it is wholesome, but also help children to appreciate the art
gallery, opera, a symphony, an SBS documentary, a quiet evening around
the family dining room table playing a board game.
In a competitive world our work will be demanding. All the practical
issues of daily living will absorb our energy and time. Our children
will study hard for a rewarding place in society. Much of life will be
dominated with ‘gathering nuts and corn and straw’. But we also need to
nurture a more contemplative dimension to life and develop insight and
understanding and critical discernment and tend our relationships and
above all our relationship with God.
The things that will sustain us in the winter of hard times are wisdom,
depth of character, spiritual tenacity, purpose of mind, the ability to
dream and imagine, to be silent before God and hear his voice.
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