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Spiritual reflection to start the day with Dr Linden Bicket, a teacher of literature and religion at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity

Good morning. I recently read Lily King’s wonderful novel Writers and Lovers, which features the painting The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit by John Singer Sargent. This painting, created in 1882, has fascinated viewers for nearly 150 years. It depicts the four young daughters of the American expatriates Edward Darley Boit and Mary Louisa Cushing Boit in their Paris apartment at the turn of the nineteenth century. In the painting, the girls all wear white pinafores and stand in varying degrees of light and shadow near two large Japanese vases. The painting has often been understood as a charming portrait of childhood.

I looked it up and wondered how my four-year-old daughter would respond, as she loves images of children at play. The first time she laughed when viewing art was when she watched little girls at play in the film My Neighbour Totoro. So, I showed her The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit and asked her what she thought. She looked curiously at the girls and said, ‘I think they are angels, but where are their wings?’ She also wondered if some of the girls might be sad. I loved this. My daughter’s idea of the Boit daughters as spiritual intermediaries completely changed the way I viewed the painting, and her tender observation of their sadness was so insightful.

Perhaps we should ask children more often what they notice about art and life. Their observations, honest and unaffected by the desire to seem worldly or sophisticated, have the power to reframe our world and shed new light on things.

That’s at the forefront of my mind this month as Edinburgh, where I work, has come alive with art, music, theatre and new voices for the annual festivals. I’m wondering whether we might rediscover our childlike fascination for the world and find new perspectives.

Loving God, grant us the grace to see our world with a child’s eyes. Bless us with the gifts of wonder and fresh perception. Amen.