The Parable of the Child’s Castle

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, ”Teacher, what allows a great artist to take pieces of the past and make them new?”

Josh spoke thus:

A child was building a castle out of wooden blocks.  The blocks were not regular.  When fit together the blocks didn’t form straight lines or fit into a linear pattern.

The child’s grandparent who was a composer pointed out to the child that the lines of the child’s castle weren’t straight.

“It’s not that kind of castle,” the child told the grandparent who was a composer.

The blocks were varied in color.  There were large green blocks and small yellow blocks.  There was a red block in the shape of a prism, and there was an actual prism the child had found that complemented the prism-shaped block.  There was a blue cylinder which might have made a perfect tower, but the child placed the cylinder at the base of a wall.

The child’s grandparent who was a composer pointed out the inappropriate placement of the cylinder in the wall.

“It’s not that kind of wall,” the child told the grandparent who was a composer.

In addition to the prism, there were many items among the blocks that were not blocks at all.  An old watch became a turret.  A ripped blanket became a redoubt.  An egg carton provided a crenelated keep.  A piece of broken brick became a drawbridge.

The child’s grandparent who was a composer commented on the strangeness of a drawbridge constructed of brick and suggested that wood might be more appropriate.

“It’s not that kind of drawbridge,” the child told the grandparent who was a composer.

The castle was placed on a tattered old ottoman the child had retrieved from an attic corner.  The scarlet velvet upholstery of the ottoman was faded to blood orange, and the child could pick out the ottoman’s golden needlework with bare fingers, but the ottoman was almost as tall as it was wide and provided a platform too steep for scaling by invading armies.

The grandparent who was a composer pointed out that the ottoman’s perpendicular sides also made the castle gate unattainable by its friends.  No one could get in or out.  The gate needed a ramp.

“It’s not that kind of gate,” the child told the grandparent who was a composer.

“You certainly are good at telling me what the castle is not,” the grandparent who was a composer said, “But can you tell me what kind of castle it is?” 

“It’s a set of variations on a theme,” the child replied.

The grandparent who was a composer hugged the child and led the child to the kitchen for a treat.