Receiving Presents: Does It Matter What’s Inside?

Reminder

A father once gave his child a beautifully wrapped box. It was red and gold with a large ribbon. The father said to the child, ‘Before you can open it, let’s imagine what might be inside’.

To start with the box contained only simple objects, but as they stared and wondered, the child’s imagination grew and the box started filling up with various fantastical ideas: a troupe of dancing fairies, a musical box containing a full orchestra of mice, a pair of magic shoes that makes you walk on clouds, a toy train full of chattering teddy bears, a miniature garden full of tiny roses, trees and monkeys…The ideas kept flowing. Towards the end of the evening, the father suggested, ‘Now you can open your present’. The child responded ‘No Daddy, I don’t want to open it. I’m happy with the box’.

Would you open the box?

What would be in your box that you would find most satisfying?

Is it possible that someone’s gratitude for the gift of imagination is stronger than their curiosity and appetite for the real life? How does it feel?

First published: December 2013

Thoughts and joy

“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”

Buddha

Unburdened dreaming

Just a few days ago I caught my little son daydreaming. He pulled a blanket on our carpet, grabbed a pillow from the sofa, and quietly lied down losing himself into some world unknown to me. I smiled understandingly.

I saw both myself and my husband in this daydreaming. We both do that– we lose ourselves in thoughts, in wondering. A lot of it is purposeful, of course. A lot of it is planning and problem-solving, and reflection on past events but not all… and thank God for that.

The dreaming that I wish I was doing more often is that in Beatrix Potter’s style, where rabbits and ducks wonderfully misbehave and talk too much. The dreaming that makes you giggle to yourself, the dreaming that ends without a list of things to do or to have. The dreaming that leaves you relaxed and entertained. Unburdened dreaming.

These days we are only supposed to have a wish list, aren’t we? Dreaming about having, dreaming about goods is encouraged, the opposite is true of dreaming fiction.

I really wish that my son will be searching the depths of his imagination for cheer, comfort and encouragement, that he will develop a strong dreaming muscle that will help him counter those dreams that consume one’s energy by pressing you to want more.

The real dreams of a real and creative child, do you still have them?

Music from Miss Potter: biographical movie about Beatrix Potter directed by Chris Noonan
Katie Melua – When You Taught Me How To Dance