Change Agent: University in a cave

Paul wrote his epistles in prison

John wrote the book of Revelation isolated in Patmos caves

David wrote some Psalms while hiding in caves running away from King Saul.

The cave/ prison/pit isolation experience runs through the Old Testament and New Testament Bible.

Several of the world’s leading schools of faith record their founders receiving divine insights during periods of isolation/ retreat.

Shakespeare could have conceived/ wrote his major Tragedies between 1603 and 1613, when his powers as a writer were at their height. His theatre, “the Globe and other London playhouses were shut for an astonishing total of 78 months – more than 60% of the time. [“Shakespeare in Lockdown: Did he write King Lear in plague quarantine?” Andrew Dickson, The Guardian, 22 March 2020]

According to “Deng Xiaoping” by Ezra Vogel, Deng formulated plans how to reform China in his 3yrs, banished by boss to manual labor in the Jiangxi rural countryside. Deng, the chief architect of China’s economic rise, read late into the night, and worked in the factory by day, did housework in evening, looking after aged parents, crippled son and ill wife. He was 65 yrs old then, while younger men fell to depression.

President Nelson Mandela of South Africa spent 27 yrs in prison for protesting against apartheid, emerged to forgive those who put him there. “I found solitary confinement the most forbidding aspect of prison life. There was no end and no beginning; there is only one’s own mind, which can begin to play tricks.” He used the time as “university behind bars”. (Mandela death: How he survived 27 yrs in prision, Mike Wooldridge, BBC, 2013)

How will you emerge from the cave of covid-19 “safe distancing”?

“Your mind is the garden, 
your thoughts are the seeds,
the harvest can either be flowers or weeds.” Wordsworth

How to retyre, 7 May 2015