Blind Spots & Balance; Perspective & Priorities

Up until just over a year ago our family car was a 14 seater van which required both BB and myself to upgrade our drivers' licences and pass a written and on-road test. BB did his first and then he took me out and had me doing reverse parks etc to get me used to a larger vehicle before I went for the test.

He pointed out to me that there was a large blind spot on the driver's side  - which I was totally unaware of - so I needed to not only check the mirrors but lean forward in my seat so I could see properly before I pulled out of my lane. Just a simple adjustment. I could have found out about the blind spot another way but it would have been very inconvenient at best or perhaps quite disastrous.

Every age has its own blindspots.

How do we avoid the blind spots of our age?

In his book, God in the Dock, C.S.Lewis said:

'Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes.'

And as a way to correct our outlook or see past our blind spots he advised:

'We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook—even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it.'

I know many of us make an art out of finding old books -and take great pleasure in obtaining them very cheaply at times - including myself and I've written elsewhere of the way books have enlarged my thinking and many times these have been older books or books that have been birthed out of a very different generation to my own.

'Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes.'

Perspective & Priorities

Up until I was 19 years of age I had a noticeable Scottish accent but after a major move which took me away from my family and the Scottish influence I'd been brought up under, my accent gradually diminished and now most people wouldn't pick up that I was a Scot unless I bung on an accent (which I can do easily enough).

Perspective is a little like this.

When we are in certain environments we imbibe the atmosphere around us and often getting away or stepping back from those environments reveals how they have influenced us.

Getting a different perspective is important at times - to help us to restore balance or to re-adjust our priorities.

I've felt strongly this past week that I needed to get some perspective.

The internet and communication in general come at a cost.

Time for reflection and stillness is consumed by its distractions and interruptions. Much of it is good but reflection and mulling and sifting through it is needful or we can just go with the flow of whatever is current, swept up and unable to discern, deaf to the still small voice that we need to hear to reveal the blind areas in our lives.

And so this week I stepped back from internet distraction - blogs, forums, emails - to give myself room to think and re-order my priorities.

This week I've been listening to what He is saying without the distraction of other voices.

 I chose a hymn I wasn't familiar with, apart from a few words I've seen quoted in books I've read, More Love to Thee, O Christ, and each morning I've listened to it.

As the week progressed I began to listen to it three or four times each day. The words express where I want my priorities to be and hopefully the heart of what I'm attempting to convey here. Giving myself some mind space and focussing on these words each day has brought freshness and clarity and enabled me to adjust my perspective.

'More love to Thee, O Christ, More love to Thee!

Hear Thou the prayer I make, On blended knee; This is my earnest plea:

More love, O Christ to Thee,

More love to Thee, More love to Thee!

Australian History for Primary Age Children

I was asked not long ago if I had any suggestions for Australian History for younger children but I had a mental blank at the time.

Well, I do have a couple of recommendations - one of which my youngest pulled off the shelf just recently -  so here they are.

Janette's Pictures of Australian History - and Timeline Figures

This resource covers Australia's first hundred years in pen and ink drawings with an accompanying rhyme for each picture plus some added notes. The pictures cover a wide range of people, places and events: Aboriginal life, explorers, artists, Governors, convicts and poets are included and although the author has stated that the resource is not meant to be comprehensive, she has certainly included a wide range of interesting material.

 

Included are 35 pages of drawings, ideas on how to use the pictures and an alphabetical index of the contents. The pictures are printed on good quality card stock and we photocopied and enlarged the pictures to make the writing easier for younger children to read and used them for note booking and timelines. 

The author suggests using the pictures as a springboard for further investigation which is basically what we did when I used them a few years ago with 3 of my boys.

Personally, I think the material suits about ages 8 to 10 but I'm sure it could be adapted to a wider range of ages. My only 'criticism' is that I think the rhymes are a little forced at times - that may put older children off and it did annoy me at times.

My second recommendation is The Story of Australia which is part of the Childcraft series of books which are out of print but often turn up in op shops or Lifeline book fairs.

All my kids loved this book. It has good sized print and just enough writing on each person or event (about one and a half pages) for children who can read but would struggle to read a whole chapter on their own.

Voyages of Discovery, The First Settlers, Gold Fever, Founders and Pioneers and Gallipoli are some of the contents. I think I paid a couple of dollars for a whole set of Childcraft books and they have all been well used.

Death of a Guru

Death of a Guru by Rabindranath R. Maharaj

Rabindranath (Rabi) grew up in Trinidad and was descended from a long line of Brahmin priests. His father, a great Yogi,  had renounced all attachments to the physical world within days of his marriage and from that time on had responded to no one (including Rabi who wouldn’t have been born if his father’s vows had come any sooner) and remained in a trance-like state for 8 years when he suddenly died in mysterious circumstances.

Rabi’s mother was deeply religious and taught him his duty as a Hindu. He was devoted to her but shortly after his father’s death, they were separated when she took her husband’s ashes to India to be spread on the Ganges and he was left in the care of his Aunt.  His mother was not to return until 11 years later.

At the age of 10, Rabi’s reputation as an uncompromising religious Hindu was growing and he was accepted as a student at the temple where he spent his days in transcendental meditation, yoga and other religious devotions, but his belief in the idea that he was ‘a chosen vessel, destined for early success in the search for union with Brahman’ clashed with the reality of daily life and caused much friction between his Aunt & himself.

‘It seemed difficult to face everyday life after hours in trance. The conflict and contrast between these two worlds was unresolvable. The higher states of consciousness I experienced in meditation were supposedly approaching reality as it really was. Yet the everyday world of joys and sorrows, pain and pleasure, birth and death, fears and frustrations……this was the world I had to deal with, and I dare not dismiss it as illusion unless I was prepared to call insanity true enlightenment. My religion made beautiful theory, but I was having serious difficulty applying it in everyday life.’

The book details his increasing deep inner struggles and conflict, his fear of the gods he worshipped, the caste system  & the unchangeable law of karma and at the age of 15 years, ‘the death of a guru’ with the  revelation that the true God and Shepherd loved him and was speaking to him.

The book continues with the transformation of many members of his family, his difficult reunion with his mother, medical studies in London, work with young people who were being swept into Eastern mysticism through drug use, and eventually his call to expose the Hinduization of western Society.

Although this book was written some years ago, I think it’s still important for today. We’re just on the other side where transcendental meditation, Yoga, ‘doing one’s own thing’ (dharma) and other Eastern concepts are now a part of our culture.

The descriptions of Hindu life and culture alone are very informative but I haven’t read another book that explained Eastern mysticism so well and for students heading into a world that is ‘doing its own thing’ it could be very valuable.

According to the author Yoga literally means 'yoking' and refers to union with Brahman. The positions and breath control are intended as aids to to Eastern meditation and he states that no part of Yoga can be separated from the philosophy behind it.

The book was first published  in the late 1970’s and is still in print but has been updated. 

I like to schedule this at some stage in in upper high school for its philosophical and biographical aspects.