Friday Five: Big Picture

Sally at Revgals put this up on our Friday Five:

This week I took some time out to stop and walk and take in the view; my son Chris is studying in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, too often we simply drive up there, turn around and come home! This time Tim and I took time out to take in the view. It occurs to me that we need to do that more in life....


With that in mind I offer you this weeks Friday Five:


1. How important is the "big picture" to you, do you need a glimpse of the possibilities or are you a details person?

I always think I like to look at the big picture. I am NOT a detail person, but I have always had detail persons in the congregations or I have hired a detail person as secretary to do things like that. I am thankful I have several detail persons in my present parish. And they seem to like to have a big picture folk in their midst. Now, the real problem is that I have no detail person in my private life. I can solve the problems of global hunger but get the bathrooms cleaned????

2. If the big picture is important to you how do you hold onto it in the nitty gritty details of life?
The Big Picture is always changing as I have to deal with the nitty gritty. Because the Big Picture is never something that I can accomplish, it always has to be massaged into some approximation of reality. Since I am a P on Myers-Briggs, this is possible. While I can bring things to some conclusion, it is never the conclusion that I idealize when I start out. I used to be a perfectionist and could never get anything done. I got over that in college and learned to get things done as best I could.

The whole Aristotelian notion that there is perfection in this life has always been a bugaboo. After I studied this philosophy I decided to jettison it for a more realistic way of living. I am more able to recognize that perfection is not only unattainable, but not something worthy of imitation. Give me good ole existentialism!

3. Name a book, poem, psalm, piece of music that transports to to another dimension ( one....what am I thinking....)

Music is what transports me. I am not a good concert goer, however, as I get enthused by performance and disturb those around me. Mahler, Mozart, Beethoven, Vaughn-Williams, Richard Strauss, even Palestrina all make my heart go pitty-pat. I love to sing in a good choir too and performing great works of music transports me to God.

4.Thinking of physical views, is there somewhere that inspires you, somewhere that you breathe more easily?

There are several places that are ‘thin places’ for me. The Plain of Salisbury is one. It surprised me that it had such an effect on me. Stonehendge is a Big Picture place--where faith all began for my Wiltshire forebearers. The recent excavations there show it as a massive cemetary--my roots.

The Grand Canyon is another.



The whole of the islands of Iona and Lindesfarne captivated me. But there are a few places on my drive to the parish I serve now that are beautiful and take my breath away. A couple of friends have a cottage on a lake which if I sit there, “all becomes well” as St. Julian of Norwich says.

5. A picture opportunity... post one if you can ( or a link to one!)