Meditation in a Toolshed

Stepping into someone else’s shoes can be a really hard thing to do. I know that for me it’s never easy to try and understand an issue from someone else’s perspective with an open mind. After the first reading of Meditation in a Toolshed C.S Lewis made it very easy to understand that in order to see situations and the world in the right light we have to take that step into another pair of shoes and see things from all perspectives. I really liked the way that Lewis described looking along and at a situation. As soon as I understood the concept I started to classify people that I know into the different categories, then when we were having class discussion I realized that I was thinking exactly the opposite way of what Lewis intended. His article wasn’t at all meant to divide the way that people think, but to bring them together and help his readers to broaden their points of view and understanding of situations. In order for everyone to work in cooperation we have to balance how we look at and along things. I easily found myself thinking of the extremes of looking at and along things. Someone who only focuses on the along could become very emotional and not understand when something needs to be done because it is the logical thing to do. People who only look at situations could have a hard time incorporating other peoples’ ideas and they might travel down a narrower road.

I loved Prof. A. Ribeiro’s thoughts on this article. When she said the only reason we can see the tree is because the beam provides the light from the sun, the whole concept of at and along clicked into place for me. It became so clear that one can’t exist without the other. From this she expanded onto being humble. Humility is a very admirable quality in a person and I agree that the more humility we have and when we admit that we can only see certain things in parts then we will be able to gain wisdom and start to see more of the whole.