Latest Reflections
AN OUTSTANDING PLACE TO LEARN
The Very Revd June Osborne, Dean of Salisbury (Thursday 1st July 2010)
Education has always been one of the core purposes of this Cathedral and we are fortunate to share the Close with many places of learning from our own Cathedral School to Sarum College as well as other schools and museums. Our commitment to education isn’t only about courses and curriculums but about the impulse to learn, to seek wisdom as the daily delight which is being a Christian.
Bishop David, to whom we sadly say farewell this summer, is fond of saying that he wakes each morning wondering who is going to change his mind that day. We may not find the idea of having our mind changed with that much regularity very comfortable but it does remind us that being a Christian involves a willingness to learn things afresh, to see something that God is doing with new eyes and to be open to new insights or experiences. That skill doesn’t get easier as we get older but a willingness to learn is asked of all of us who serve on behalf of the Cathedral. As we offer our welcome to visitors or school groups or anyone who comes our way, we know that what they need and appreciate is more than merely new information. What is learnt whilst in the Cathedral has the power to transform lives because people see their circumstances, their faith, the character of God and the power of prayer differently.
One of the things which makes real impact on people who come to the Cathedral is our witness to joy, learning again in this place what ultimately matters and why it’s good to be alive. Learning to bless like that has a redemptive quality because it repeats to us the essential Christian truth that God is ever present and that love is stronger than death. The Victorian poet and Jesuit Priest Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote like this about our encounters with God, in the aftermath of a tragedy, in his poem ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’:
“I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand.”
How do we learn in this place? We meet and greet God and by that we understand more about our lives. We meet and greet one another and witness to our joy. Such encounters bring with them fresh understandings which enrich our lives and give us the capacity to go on trusting when we don’t understand. And so we practise the habits of blessing in this place. By meeting, greeting, understanding and blessing we become wise.
CREATIVITY - A PRECIOUS GIFT
Maggie Guillebaud, Cathedral Associate Priest (Tuesday 1st June 2010)
Creativity is one of God's greatest gifts to humanity. There is no other species on earth apart from humans that possess this unique gift. We have the ability to co-ordinate hand and eye to produce the glories of a medieval Cathedral, to write music, to paint, model clay, chisel stone, compose poetry, write soap operas and enthral thousands by the thrashing of guitars or the singing of the blues.
In his seminal book of the 1950s Motivation and Personality the psychologist Maslow proposed a theory of how humans were motivated, how they achieved satisfaction in their lives. He illustrated this by his famous pyramid of the hierarchy of need, at the bottom of which were such basic needs as water, breathing, food and sleep. At the very top of his pyramid, when all other basic and not-so-basic needs had been satisfied, were morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, and the acceptance of facts. These were, one might say, the crown of a civilized society.
We are fortunate indeed that we live in a country where not only are many of our basic needs taken care of but where creativity is permitted to flourish, and is indeed encouraged: the public subsidy of the arts has been a precious part of our heritage since 1948. The Cathedral places a high premium on creativity in all its forms, and this month the Cathedral plays host to some wonderful events during the Salisbury International Arts Festival.
But if the blossoming of creativity is one of the highest functions of a civilized society let us not forget those who by the very nature of their existence in the rotting slums of the mega-cities throughout the world, or eking out precarious livings on the land do not have the energy or the opportunity to discover their creative selves. In being denied this opportunity they are being denied one of God's most precious gifts. Because it is in our creativity that we come to know ourselves, extend the limits of what we believe we can do, and reflect back to God the glory of his creation as we attempt to interpret the world in all its pain and glory. This gift belongs to us all; and this Cathedral is a living testament to that fact.