Wednesday, September 26, 2012

What color is an apple?

"Still Life - Apples and a Jar"
Artist: Samuel Peploe

I found this on the Spiritual Literacy blog that is kept by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat:

We always like to keep up with what Robert Fulghum is writing about in his online journal. He has a knack for finding delightful things in the ordinary experiences of everyday life. In an entry for May 31, 2009, he shares an encounter with a group of little children out for a stroll after a rainstorm. One of the children steps out of the line because he's seen a rainbow — not in the sky but in a puddle of water. His act of wonder opens the eyes of the other kids and the teacher to the path of imagination. This teaching story reminds us of the boy who, when asks the color of apples, says "white." The teacher says apples can be red or green or yellow, but the boy has looked inside them.
Wonder. Do you have it?

What's inside. Do you look?
~~~
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3 comments:

  1. TomSeptember 27, 2012 at 1:18 PM

    I love this. Though the boy who looked inside the apple would in many circumstances be beyond my level, I would be the boy who saw a reflection of the rainbow in a puddle of water. I love finding delightful things in ordinary experiences. I love finding divine things in ordinary experiences, in the utter mundane in fact. To me one of the most heartbreaking realities of this world is the inability that so many have to imagine something of the difficulties another person, a different person must face. In this political season I fault much of the hardening I'm seeing in the hearts of others to a lack of imagination.

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  2. Ellie FinlaySeptember 27, 2012 at 2:14 PM

    I'm really glad you like this one, Tom.

    And I agree about the "lack of imagination".

    (Reminds me once more of _The Prophetic Imagination_ by Bruggemann.)

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  3. AnonymousOctober 1, 2012 at 5:54 PM

    My sense of wonder seems to be directly linked to how much time I spend interacting with nature. So, I found it very interesting that both of the examples in the post were related to children interacting with nature in some fashion. Maybe philosophers like Thoreau and Muir were more correct than many would like to believe about our need to connect with nature. Just a thought.
    Carolyn L.

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