You are an observer, whatever else you are. If you encourage the tendency to observe there is no limit to what you can survey from the fastness and comfort of your armchair. You need not be ‘up and doing’, caught up in everyday concerns. There is no His Masters Voice to tell you that this or that is for your attention.
There is a wealth of interest value in what goes on in our world. You are a part of it. Why close yourself off to it?
Observation and imagination feed of each other. It is liberating to let one’s mind play over situations that are not in your small world. What know ye of yourself if only yourself ye know? What might you take in of value to yourself if only you gave yourself time and space to reflect. You will be enlarging the shells of your personality.
New Perspectives on Faith
What sort of Faith have we signed up to if we don’t reflect about it? In our own sanctuary, there need be no taboos. What is the thinking of todays’ era; how far might it shed new light on Faiths of old? That is just one question in two parts and it is scratching the surface; have you the courage or faith to face up to possibly enriching ideas that should arise if you reflect on your Faith and that of others?
Understanding the Cosmos
Marvellous discoveries have been made since Great Thinkers first contemplated the stars! You have the benefit of their thinking AND these discoveries. What would they have given to know what you know!
There is inherent fascination in the extraordinary Cosmos; also in the nano-world the tiniest building blocks of matter reveal an astonishing universe.
We can’t know everything. But we can know more. More than ‘know’, we can understand more if we reflect on the facts and new theories.
Understanding the Physical World
The first goal is to want to understand as much as possible. See and reflect on what has been discovered by others. The key is try to understand its significance. Our own values will be more honed to reality. The world is our oyster; there is more to this marine bivalve mullusc of the family Ostreacea than simply something to eat.
Politics and International Relations
The Geist of a period changes. It forms the backcloth to political decisions and verdicts on them. The poet Shelley said that ‘Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the future.’
There is a growing community whose ideas are changing the perspective on how things are done on a political level. Reflection on underlying trends, sharing ideas, is the midwife to a climate of opinion in which desirable change is more likely to come about.
Studies galore explain governance systems of the world but how many people reflect carefully about alternatives to their societies and try and think how to change things in a fundamental way as opposed to tinkering at the edges. What is ‘the way forward’? In detail or in large perspective, reflection helps bring progress.
