Lunchtime Musings
At Lunchtime, I decide to walk to the oasis that is the secret garden of Bristol Cathedral. As I cut through the cloisters, I hear heavenly voices coming from the Cathedral.
I walk into the sun blessed garden of wonders dazzling in its array of beautiful plants and flowers. I decide to sit in full view of the sun, making its star guest appearance, for it had been raining only minutes before. I also sit close to the Cathedral so I can hear the voices of heaven penetrating through the ancient Cathedral walls.
Having immersed myself in such warmth, beauty and angelic music, I returned back to the office. As I walked across College Green a feeling of absolute peace and perfect contentment flooded my senses as my mind surrendered to this inner movement.
As I approached the entrance to the office, I smiled from a place of deep inner joy at someone leaving the building for lunch. The scowl was frozen on her face, unable to recognise my sentiments, clearly completely identified with the seriousness of her mental noise, no doubt tied in to her role there.
Then I saw my boss going into the lift, I ran over in order to join him. He asked if I had had a good weekend, and what I had been up to. I had literally no memory of anything that had preceded this moment, nor did I care, for I was blissfully just present. So I replied that I had but didn’t recall what I had been up to.
He said you are as bad as my kids, when he asks them what they have been up to they shrug and reply “I dunno” and when asked what they ate for lunch they reply “I dunno”. I laughed, as he was only being lighthearted, but it made me remember…
I remembered as a child how I was shamed out of the natural joy of being in in the present moment, by adults into having to think abstractly. To think about what I had been doing, and indeed what I was about to be doing, for fear of being ridiculed.
As children, we are usually perfectly content playing in the moment, having no concept of anything other than using our imagination to interpret this magical present.
Perhaps the world would be a better place if we decided to learn from children how to be happy, as much as we dispel our ‘infinite wisdom’ upon them.
After all happiness is what only really matters, and how often, do we, with the best intentions, instead train children how to be unhappy.
Still, you have to lose yourself to find yourself they say, so it’s all perfect! Feeling blissful today, trusting in life, and the wonder of it.
