Theoponderings

By all accounts, dancing in the rain is a terrible idea. You get wet, you get cold, you might get sick if you stay out too long. People might look at you strange. There is no good reason to do so. But if you told these things to someone dancing in the rain, they would likely think you the silly one. “But of course I know that! I just love dancing in the rain.”

Now, if you yourself danced in the rain, you might feel silly, for all the previously mentioned reasons. But if you gave it a chance, something interesting might happen. You might find yourself enjoying it. The feeling of exhilaration as you dance, the cool, life giving water hitting your face, the soothing sounds of the rain hitting the ground around you. You might notice the grass and trees appearing much greener than before, and smell the petrichor as the water seeps into dry soil. Anyone looking at you would see a silly person. you would not be a different person before or after, except for the fact that you’d be wet and cold, and maybe sick. So it might be best not to dance in the rain. But having danced in the rain once, would you do it again? I know I would. I know when I dance in the rain, I feel free.

In C.S Lewis’ writing: Meditation-in-A-Toolshed, http://ktf.cuni.cz/~linhb7ak/Meditation-in-a-Toolshed.pdf he makes the distinction between looking at something and looking along it. Experience versus observation, and how the two views are completely different. He argues that while modern thought would say the outside view is more accurate and scientific, it cannot be, because one cannot fully understand without experience. These ponderances take on a whole new meaning in our current context, with the rise of the internet. We can look at any number of things, learn how they work, understand why they exist, but never once look along it. In that way, our view of some things can be very narrow. Now, when it comes to the things we know, we have of course experienced our own life, and thus our perspective is different. During Covid, I was isolated, and I spent way too much time online. I watched streamers play games together, talk with each other, interact. You’d think that when restrictions dropped and I would be sociable, that I’d have an understanding of all the things I’d looked at, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I could barely socialize with people. I’d looked at human interaction, but not along it. It took me years to regain normalcy in human interaction. That was a more extreme example, but I do know that I was not alone in my experience. The internet allows you to look at so many things, but you almost never look at anything for more than a bit, let alone look along them. You just scroll to the next reel.

All this to say, I think looking along life; experiencing it, is an amazing way to spend your time. Shocking, I know. But I still struggle with media overconsumption. I look at stuff for hours each day, isolating myself from people around me. Sad as it is, I’ve wasted more time looking at stuff than I have reading my Bible, and experiencing a relationship with God. We can gain so much perspective by engaging with the people around us, and looking along their lives, then letting them look along ours. Instead of looking at an aquaintance’s instagram page, have a conversation with them. Instead of looking at religious discourse online, hold a Bible study. Now, this doesn’t mean looking at things is bad. That’s not what Lewis meant. But we cannot be so sure we have all the answers when we only see things from one perspective. Personally. I want to dance in the rain. And who knows? Maybe I’ll meet someone, and they’ll teach me to paint in a blizzard. That sounds like an awful idea, but I won’t know until I try.