The experience of wonder opens us to realms unimaginable. Wonder holds its own kind of magic as it eludes calculation, upturns reason, and brings us one step closer to God. Wonder ushers in the heart of the child, neither to judge nor to lay blame, but to live by the question, “What in the world?” Wonder, and its sister curiosity, bring us closer to a life that is alternately terrible and sublime. Curiosity is from the Latin cura, meaning concern, to care for, or mend. Together, curiosity and wonder, heal the wounded heart and lay to rest the troubled mind. In the course of a day, we need only let wonder wonder. Just today, the Dark Eyed Junco with its rosette bill lands at my feeder, a “river in the sky” drenches the California coast, and I learn of the sudden death by anaphylaxis of the beautiful 25 year old dancer, Orla Baxendale.
Like the curious, wonder is a strange thing. To open to the wondrous is to spend time not-knowing and not knowing is a direct path to the inscrutable ways of faith. Typically, we get saddled with our assignments, duties, and job descriptions. Or worse, we get shackled to moral obligation and to the ways of obedience. No wonder, will surely leave us barren and empty, dying of faith.
So for each of us, the job is to see the world through the eyes of wonder. Don’t try to figure things out. You can’t think your way into wonder. Rather, let wonder guide you to the far edge of comprehension, where the most you can do bow low in reverence to the inconceivable. Go figure!
