This weekend we had a couple of days of rest without computers and phones and those other intrusive modern devices.

I have been re-reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - we are discussing it for our book group at our congregation Haven on Thursday. I have always loved this book, but I was particularly struck by this passage, describing the second meeting of Guy Montag the fireman with Clarisse, a 17 year old neighbour who is considered eccentric:

He said hello and then said, “What are you up to now?”
“I’m still crazy. The rain feels good. I love to walk in it.”
“I don’t think I’d like that,” he said.
“You might if you tried.”
She licked her lips. “Rain even tastes good.”
“What do you do, go around trying everything once?”
“Sometimes twice.”
…
[Clarisse says:]”You’re not like the others. I’ve seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon, last night. The others would never do that. The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten me. No one has time any more for anyone else. You’re one of the few who put up with me.”
…
And she ran off and left him standing there in the rain. Only after a long time did he move.
And then, very slowly, as he walked, he tilted his head back in the rain, for just a few moments, and opened his mouth….

One of the signs of Montag’s awakening, of his becoming more human, was the fact that he looked at the moon when Clarisse pointed it out. I am like that sometimes. Our organisations are like that sometimes. Someone a little different tells us about the moon, and we do not even look, just walk away and leave them talking.

How many insights have we missed because we have not even taken the risk of looking at the moon or tasting the rain?

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 29th, 2003 at 8:21 pm by dan and is filed under wise words. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.