The Jam-jar 21/6/20
As we think of how life might be once lock-down is over and once we can see a new life ahead perhaps it’s helpful to think about the jam-jar.
Imagine your life’s activities and possessions and people and groups in a jam-jar.
This lock-down time encourages us to empty the jam-jar. So spread out before you on the table are all those things and activities that consumed our minds and lives; we can look at them and decide which can safely be discarded as no longer significant – whilst others are too precious from which to even take our gaze.
But we need to start refilling the jam-jar (rebuilding our lives) probably with less things than there were before. It might be that some have been discarded to make space for something special that has not had enough space in life up to now. But however they were formed, the spread of things on the table needs to go back in the jam-jar and the important thing is to replace them in the correct order.
Some of the things will occupy lots of ‘space’ in life and, if you think about it, they might not be important. If you put them in first there won’t be space for the other things that are significant to you. So put the really meaningful, life-giving things in first and then fill any gaps with the less important things. It might be that there are some small less-than-important items that cannot be accommodated.
You have perhaps now done the re-adjusting of life that you've been needing to do for ages.....
PH
(adapted from ideas found in similar allegorical stories some of which talk about tennis balls
and ping-pong balls, or rice and peas; the whole purpose of each story, including the one above,
is simply to get things in the right order and the right priority for the new life that is waiting for us)
As we think of how life might be once lock-down is over and once we can see a new life ahead perhaps it’s helpful to think about the jam-jar.
Imagine your life’s activities and possessions and people and groups in a jam-jar.
This lock-down time encourages us to empty the jam-jar. So spread out before you on the table are all those things and activities that consumed our minds and lives; we can look at them and decide which can safely be discarded as no longer significant – whilst others are too precious from which to even take our gaze.
But we need to start refilling the jam-jar (rebuilding our lives) probably with less things than there were before. It might be that some have been discarded to make space for something special that has not had enough space in life up to now. But however they were formed, the spread of things on the table needs to go back in the jam-jar and the important thing is to replace them in the correct order.
Some of the things will occupy lots of ‘space’ in life and, if you think about it, they might not be important. If you put them in first there won’t be space for the other things that are significant to you. So put the really meaningful, life-giving things in first and then fill any gaps with the less important things. It might be that there are some small less-than-important items that cannot be accommodated.
You have perhaps now done the re-adjusting of life that you've been needing to do for ages.....
PH
(adapted from ideas found in similar allegorical stories some of which talk about tennis balls
and ping-pong balls, or rice and peas; the whole purpose of each story, including the one above,
is simply to get things in the right order and the right priority for the new life that is waiting for us)