My life is a series of blessings, like a string of pearls. If a blessing is possible, surely it is bestowed, distributed, not hoarded by a miserly God. And if blessings occur, why should they ever stop? For a blessing by its definition is a supernatural thing. No obstacle stands in its way. So I take it as given that blessings rain down continuously, ready for me to catch in pan or barrel. The greatest blessing is to know I am blest. For otherwise a blessing might seem a curse, just as electricity might be a curse to someone who doesn’t know what to do with this powerful cable, that can deliver such fatal magic. I had only intended a short stroll but it turned out as a two-hour round trip. Three years ago I did a pastel of St Lawrence’s Church and the Dashwood Mausoleum. Yesterday I passed the spot where I drew it, and walked the landscape depicted therein. What a privilege, what a blessing to walk in the landscape of a painting! For I saw it in my mind’s eye as I traversed the paths, and wondered if I ought to depict my own self in it when I got home. Then I had a thought: that our happiness and misery are provoked by the symbolic landscapes we traverse, rarely by the “real world”. It’s like being in a dream. The bedrock reality is our physical safety and well-being; whether we are threatened or not. The rest is a waking dream, in which I, Everyman, endlessly embroider this simple theme, till its outline, so simple originally, becomes unrecognisable. And in this realm, the blessings themselves are symbols: gift-wrapped angel-messages, reminding me.

3 thoughts on “Walking in a painted landscape”

  2. That is a very interesting thought, that our emotional response comes from the symbolic landscapes rather than the 'real' ones. I suppose in one sense all our sense experience is symbolic. Depending on our previous experience our surroundings may have very different connotations. Very interesting thought indeed. That one line inspired many thoughts, perhaps too much for a blog comment.

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  3. Ah, that is true, Rama.

    Chris, there is no limit on the length of your blog comment (that I know of). But I'm glad something was sparked off in you and hope you'll share some of it in due course!

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