Lots of people are posting photos from their daily walks on their Facebook pages . I love to see the trees in blossom, the open fields and my favourite beach in Sydney. It reminds me that there is a wide world out there .
My own world is confined to the house and garden as I have a suppressed immune system and am therefore one of the 1.3 million who can’t go outside their own home at all. I have taken to walking from front to back door when I’m talking to friends. Yesterday I covered three miles.
Then I remembered that, with a little imagination, I too can see a wider world by looking in the pictures on my wall and the features of my house. A Japanese wall print takes me to a Japanese tea room . Stare into a painting by my sister and I see kangaroos among the trees.
My bookshelves become a branch of the local library . Fortunately it has a good section of cookery books. My kitchen is no longer a kitchen but a cafe. I am so lucky in having a garden – like many I am learning to enjoy the small changes each day brings. The garden nourishes me but so does looking at the interior of my house with fresh eyes.
As a primary school teacher I have long valued children’s play . It is how they learn and grow . And now in this crisis I am learning the value of being playful myself: playing in transforming my hall walk , playing by wearing hats for Easter Sunday dinner, playing by ‘ ‘going to the cinema with popcorn’ rather than just plonking myself in front of the television. It is all giving me fresh insight into the words of Jesus found in Matthew18. 3 ‘ ‘except you become as little children ye shall not enter the kingdom of God.
Sandra Palmer
St Chrysostom's Church News and Views 