I was walking along to orchestra rehearsal on Monday evening, day-dreaming. A still, small voice broke into my daydream, "Excuse me!" In the doorway of the house I was passing, stood an elderly lady. "Excuse me, dear..."
"Yes?" I replied, as smiling, I walked down the driveway towards her.
"What day is it, please?" she asked.
"Monday."
"Wednesday?" I mustn't have spoken loudly & clearly enough.
"No, sorry, it's Monday."
"Ah. I didn't know. I wasn't sure. And it seemed more like a Sunday..."
"Ah," I smiled at her, "that's because it's a bank holiday today. It's bank holiday Monday - some services aren't on as usual."
"Oh." She seemed to relax a little. "Bank holiday Monday. Thank you. Thank you, dear."
Returning to my path, someone else's struggle with unreality had broken in and exposed my daydreaming for the degenerate, dangerous thing it was: a struggle with unreality. To be fought, not fostered. While I was harbouring unreality in my mind, that dear lady was fighting to have her mind correspond to reality. I know which the gospel would have us do...
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8 comments:
Hmm, I think I have some reservations about your ideas. Where's the line between imagination (definitely a good thing) and daydreaming (which u suggest is bad)? Surely it only becomes bad when either you cannot separate reality from unreality, or when you prefer to inhabit your unreality rather than reality?
Yes. Imagination is a good thing as a servant, to glorify God, not a master. hm, that's an obvious thing to say. Too easily I'd naturally harbour the unreality of my daydreams as escapism or playing with thoughts & wants which however good would be better turned to prayer. It doesn't usually help me set my hope on the right, gospelly-framed, things. Encourages me to set my hope on unreality rather than gospel reality. Maybe daydreaming is a particularly girl thing...
Imagination can be harnessed and put to work for the Kingdom.
Daydreaming is a wild stallion, untamable, that gallops uncontrolled, exhilarating, with the wind whipping the hair back off our face, then throws us off and we wake up in the mud.
Serves us right for coveting what the King hasn't given.
Guess where étrangère got the daydreaming from!
No this is definitely not just a girl thing! You're right in saying that imagination is an awesome thing and its great isn't it that God created us to be creative! The trouble is, and i'm talking about my day dreaming experience, is that often they're unhelpful and very distracting. I'm often day dreaming about my own desires which is generally to the detriment of my desire for God! Gospel reality is a far better and worthwhile thing to be thinking about...
"And then there's fostering unreality on a whole new level", I thought, as I walked through the New Street Pallisades with some dillusioned dude whining, I believe I can fly! Hmmm...
(That would be singing on the sound system piped out for the shoppers irritation. Not some dude I was walking with singing that. That would be embarassing.)
"The process of growing up is to be valued for what we gain, not for what we lose," so wrote C.S. Lewis. "Not to acquire a taste for the realistic is childish in a bad sense; to have lost the taste for marvels and adventures is no more a matter for congratulations than losing our teeth, our hair, our palate, and finally our hopes."
Ah yes, good old fellow-Belfastian Lewis sums it up so ably once again. Cheers, whitebadger.
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