Today’s Word: Wonder

“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”  – Socrates

When the heroine of E.B. White’s classic children’s novel “Charlotte’s Web” first writes “SOME PIG” in her web in an attempt to save her friend Wilbur’s life, she was creating more than a PR campaign. She was creating wonder. She was making everyone who saw her web stop in their tracks, stand back, scratch their heads, and try to contemplate something they couldn’t fathom. That seems like a pretty good way to go through life.

Last weekend, I gave a retreat near St. Louis for a group of people from all over the country who belong to a group called the Victorious Missionaries. They are, according to their website, “people united in providing spiritual support for people with disabilities or who are chronically ill. They are visionary people called to a way of life that sees beyond the suffering and struggles of life to the victory that is born through the spirit of love.” So they came in wheelchairs and walkers and they came with their medical assistants and family members to help them. Some came bearing pain. But none let their disabilities and diseases define them, for they came hungry for the community of each other (both old friends and new) and they came ready to be challenged and drawn closer into the presence of God. I stood in wonder (the teacher being taught), watching their joy and their awareness of life, love and God. It’s a pretty good way to go through life.

I told them on our first night that I would be challenging them. Challenging them to consider that God is in all things, so they better learn to pay attention to everything. Challenging them to find God in the silent moments they can create for themselves in the midst of their busy and often difficult lives, because that’s where God can be heard. Challenging them to find God in other people, even in those they don’t think they like, for surely God is present in us all. And challenging them to discern and name that thing for which they have been created and called. So much of this comes down to paying attention, and that’s also a good way to go through life.

This week, Sue and I are in Arizona. We spent the first few days with great friends in the southern part of state near Tucson, where we stood amazed in Saguaro National Park, surrounded by the rugged terrain that only time can create, astounded by the soaring height and beauty of the saguaro cacti themselves, piercing a sky so blue we were forced to scratch our heads in wonder. Why are we allowed such beauty?

After a four-hour drive north, we are now settling into a new kind of astonishing beauty among the red rocks of Sedona, the kind of beauty that literally causes you to clutch your chest and feel your heart beating, your eyes wide and your soul awake in order to take it all in, your mind echoing the words of Rachel Carson: “What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?”

It is, of course, easier to pay attention and find and experience God when you’re standing amid such surroundings. But life cannot and should not be measured by how many national parks and wonders of the world we visit and by how many experiences we check off a bucket list. Travel helps, no doubt. It is a blessing for those who can do it. But the one with the most travel points does not win.

Wonder and beauty are all around us every day in every place, hidden sometimes like a glittering web in the corner of a barn or disguised by someone else’s life that — at first glance — perhaps looks too difficult to enjoy or too broken to contain beauty. We need to look closer. We need to be willing to redefine beauty and shift our own expectations of where we might find it.

“Pay attention,” I told my new friends on retreat. “Look over there!” I say to Sue when I see something I don’t want her to miss.  “Slow down and watch,” I say to myself over and over. Scan the landscape looking for coyotes. See the hummingbird at the feeder. Don’t miss the people who have something to teach you. Notice God in the details — in the glittering corner of the barn telling you how special and loved you are.