Assorted Experiences of Openness

Fortunately for my sanity, which has been in danger of being overwhelmed by new experiences however pleasant it is to do new and different things, my newness quotient has lowered a little recently. Still, without coming anywhere near to being an effort, I met with several new activities over the last few days, and there are always things to learn.

Saturday night was an odd mix. We spent the evening at a pub where a band was booked for live music. As there was an entry fee starting about an hour before the band got set up, we arrived early and played Scrabble at a corner table. Games have always been a home-bound activity for me before, so that was interesting. And the band was loud. Good, though, despite my fear for my ears. I enjoyed watching a large assortment of middle-class people all nodding in time to power chords and feedback-heavy riffs.

But Sunday was the real education, in the tiny aspects that so often have the most potential for teaching.

We had a good walk across Wimbledon Common, ending on the far side at a Thai Temple. Having been in no hurry to leave the house, we missed the apparently traditional free lunch, and the temple was full of chanters so we were reluctant to enter. But the grounds are open to all, and anyone can help themselves to free hot drinks and biscuits from a collapsable table under an awning, then wander paths among trees and shrines, over wooden bridges and alongside streams and pools. At regular intervals are little signs with messages of Buddhist wisdom, pointing along the path to purification and away from suffering. A saffron-robed monk with grey ribbed socks was debating spiritual points with a T-shirted sceptical enquirer and with good humour.

I was also very taken with the free and easy attitude to sacredness that was demonstrated in the scattered shrines. I make no claim to understand any other religion outside my own experience, but it did seem quite strange to see not only small and cheap-looking plastic Buddhas among the more sober stone ones, but also what looked like children's toys given equal prominence, and cheesy and tacky ornaments. I have no idea what the significance of any of it is, but I liked the idea that a miniature statue of Don Quixote (headless besides) can be accorded a roughly equal status with the venerated founder of an entire religion. It felt to me like an open-mindedness, and a willingness to let important items stand on their own without artificial pedestals.

So I was cheerful for more than one reason after having spent an hour or so there.

From the sublime to the everyday, we stopped at a major supermarket before heading home. Mammon is worshipped on Sundays as well as weekdays in modern Britain. But even there, things can be learned. In this case it was a whole aisle devoted to Polish products (meaning products for Poles rather than for adding shininess). That made me feel good about my country for a change. I like living somewhere where people from other places want to live, and that we're comfortable enough with it that our businesses milk the new market. Of course, it helps that the Poles seem to be desirable imports (at least the ones I've met, which is quite a few now), but then many supermarkets have had ethnic aisles for a long time now. And the rest of us have learnt to buy from those aisles and had our tastes broadened as a result.

Maybe it's because of many years experience of all things closed and shuttered and walled in, but I enjoy all these signs of openness.