Day 27: Lateral Thinking

D

r Edward de Bono (19 May 1933—9 June 2021) was a Maltese physician and psychologist and hailed as the father of “Lateral Thinking.” He wrote many books on thinking including Six Thinking Hats. In layman’s terms, lateral thinking is simply the ability to look at things in different ways. De Bono gives this example: Grandma is knitting and the baby is disturbing Grandma by playing with the ball of wool. The father suggests putting the baby in the playpen. However, the mother suggests that it might be better to put Grandma instead of the baby in the playpen. Here is a different way of looking at things as perceived by the mother.

On day twenty-seven of the Season of Creation, let us self-introspect how we have cultivated lateral thinking which is also akin to the clarion call of Pope Francis in his encyclical Laudato Si’ published on June 18, 2015. "Many things have to change course," the Pope says, "but it is we human beings above all who need to change" (Laudato Si' 202). When the Pope says, let us act while there is still time I would like to think he is not referring to changing the world more than changing our hearts and minds. He calls all human beings to undergo ecological conversion. 8thWorker.us