Thursday night I was with my Book Club posse, and our discussion touched on the issue of wonder and how we seem to have lost that sense of newfound amazement in our lives. For many reasons. Busyness, constant pursuit of the "bigger and better", laziness. And the big question was, how do we recapture this? Some of our answers: make the conscious choice to look at the world with wonder. We are such feeling people (ok, I am such a feeling person) that we sit back and say, "ok world, ok God, impress me" instead of choosing to look at and really think about this incredible world created for our pleasure and initiate the Wow! feeling. Another step is to SLOW DOWN!!! We are so caught up in the nitty gritty of everyday routines and running from one place to the next that our brains can't keep up or they're running ahead, one of the two. In either case we miss so much wonder that's right in front of us. So I have decided to make the conscious effort to live in wonder and list some of those things that capture me (random as they might be).
1) The unconditional love of God: I don't think I'll ever truly get my mind around this one, and I have to struggle (unfortunately) to keep that sense of awe rather than become complacent about it.
2) Pregnancy and childbirth: I do NOT understand how anyone who has experienced pregnancy for any amount of time can go through with an abortion. What an awesome body God has given us that it can GROW another HUMAN BEING! And the fact that we then are able to get this whole other person out of us....well....evolution my a** is all I have to say.
3) The changing of the seasons: I pity Floridians and Californians on this one. Although winter is not my favorite by any means, what a blessing it is to see the world gently (and sometimes not-so-gently) shift from one season to another and explode with new levels of beauty each time.
4) Volcanos: ok, this is a random one. But did you know that Mt. St. Helens when it erupted in...hmmmm...I don't know...was it the 80's? ...anyway, it expended 8 times more energy than any nuclear bomb ever detonated and changed entire world temperatures. Another lesson in that man cannot recreate anything God has...including brute force.
5) Sunsets: the magic of color and how its reflection varies with each surface it touches.
6) The tender and patient love of my husband: amazing
7) The daily growth and changes of my son: though some days I could still swear he's physically attached to me (and would like for him to be so until the day I die) he is his own person, and to watch him develop into that person blows my mind.
8) Seeds: death and life wrapped up simultaneously in one teeny weeny package
9) Grace: see "unconditional love of God:"
10) Computers: and, moreso, people who understand them.
11) Great literature: and, moreso, the people who write it.
Not a comprehensive list by any means, but just a few items that are fodder for wonder, to my mind anyway. I think as I pursue peace, it's imperative to (WARNING: HUGE cliche on the way!) "stop and smell the roses".
1 comment:
I think i emailed you something about finding true peace somewhere between the moment the sun wakes up and right before the world itself wakes up-- there's this small chasim, like a blink of an eye, but in that moment there is quiet--calm...you can actually hear God in the silence of this new day. We all miss it. We dread the alarm, we fill our head with agendas..and that's just it. We our agenda powers higher than God's. That;s what takes the edge off of the "wow's" -- To look at a skyscraper that is filled with amazing technology, or look at the cosmos and the sun--who can replicate? the SUn is BORING-- :) To look at the newest and latest Robots that can take the world by storm,...or, looking at a storm..who can create such a thing?? yup. That's all i want to say for today.
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